4887.1:
Infrared absorbent optically transparent nanocomposites for opto-electronic devices
Abstract
With the gradual replacement of electronic components with opto-electronic coming into the large market of consumer goods, new materials are being required. To avoid interference of infrared radiation (IR) arising from the user himself on the IR signals transmitted in the device, IR shielding is required. While today’s transparent plastics also are IR transparent, plastics with inorganic fillers (i.e. mica) can be designed to be IR absorbing, however not transparent. The optical transmission is dependent on particle size with complete transparency for well-dispersed particles with sizes well below the wavelength of light, i.e. nano-particles. Conversely, the IR absorption arises from the interaction if radiation with specific chemical functionality and do therefore not depend on particle size. In this project we therefor propose to prepare polymer-nanoparticle composites with appropriate dispersion and tuned IR absorption.