Highly transparent and flexible polyimide/ZrO2 nanocomposite optical films with a tunable refractive index and Abbe number

Chia-Liang Tsai; Guey-Sheng Liou

doi:10.1039/c5cc05301c

Highly transparent and flexible polyimide/ZrO2 nanocomposite optical films with a tunable refractive index and Abbe number

Chem Commun (Camb). 2015 Sep 11;51(70):13523-6. doi: 10.1039/c5cc05301c.

Authors

Chia-Liang Tsai¹, Guey-Sheng Liou

Affiliation

¹ Functional Polymeric Materials Laboratory, Institute of Polymer Science and Engineering, National Taiwan University, 1 Roosevelt Road, 4th Sec., Taipei 10617, Taiwan. gsliou@ntu.edu.tw.

PMID: 26221638
DOI: 10.1039/c5cc05301c

Abstract

In this study, novel thermally stable zirconia-containing polyimides (PI/ZrO2) with excellent optical properties have been prepared successfully. The obtained flexible PI/ZrO2 hybrid films revealed excellent optical transparency, a tunable refractive index and an Abbe number up to 1.804 and 32.18, respectively, which are crucial for optical devices. In addition, the PI/ZrO2 hybrid films also exhibit a higher Abbe number and transparency in the visible light region due to a larger energy band gap of ZrO2 than the corresponding PI/TiO2 system.