OAM-RC

Abstract

Styrene/maleimide copolymers with N-(4-nitrophenyl) maleimide and N-(4-benzoylphenyl) maleimide as dipolar chromophores have been synthesized and characterized by thermal and spectral techniques. The weight-average molecular weights of these polymers, as determined by GPC using THF as the eluent, were 10480-12550. The resulting polymers have been found to possess good thermal stabilities (decomposition temperatures 292-308 °C) and high glass transition temperatures (192-205 °C). The vacuum deposited thin films of these polymers were subjected to corona poling to induce polar order. Under the poling conditions (5 kV, 180 °C, 30 min.), the order parameter values for polymeric thin films were estimated to be 0.312-0.355. The relaxation behaviour of aligned dipoles was studied at room temperature as well as at high temperatures using UV/Vis absorption spectroscopy. At room temperature, the decayed amounts of order parameter were found to be 7.2-8.5 % even after 60 days of poling. It was further observed that after heating for 200 h, polymeric thin films retained 75-80 % of initial polar order at 80 °C and 70-76 % at 90 °C.

Keywords

Thermal properties, Dipolar chromophores, Order parameter, Corona-poling.

Citation

S. ARORA, S. KUMAR, Synthesis and characterization of styrene/maleimide copolymers with high poling stability of dipolar chromophore, Optoelectronics and Advanced Materials - Rapid Communications, 3, 12, December 2009, pp.1359-1364 (2009).

Submitted at: Oct. 24, 2009

Accepted at: Nov. 23, 2009