We report about the development of photoreactive polymer systems which can be used in a novel method to generate stable multilayer foils for optical applications. A commonly used technique to combine two chemically different polymer foils is the thermal lamination process. However, this process is limited to compatible polymers which allow a sufficient thermal interdiffusion of chains from both sides. Many polymers which are interesting for optical applications are not miscible with each other e.g. cyclic olefin copolymers (COC) and poly (methyl methacrylate) (PMMA). We describe a reactive lamination process which uses a new copolymer system containing a small percentage of photoreactive groups. This copolymer acts as a compatibilization and binding layer between the incompatible foils. The photoreactive groups of the polymer are based on aromatic ketones (benzophenone, anthraquinone and fluorenone) and are able to covalently insert into almost any neighboring C,H-bond (figure 1). Figure 1: PMMA copolymer systems containing photoreactive groups based on (a) benzophenone, (b) anthraquinone and (c) fluorenonePhotochemical activation (?=250 nm, I=4.6 mW/cm2) during lamination leads to the generation of covalent bonds across the interfaces and the two foils are linked to each other via this layer. Such systems guarantee a fast and effective conversion of these groups and allow a lamination process under moderate illumination conditions, even when temperatures of up to 200�C are employed, which are required for the generation of optical multilayer foils.

Development of photoreactive polymer systems for a novel reactive lamination process

248th National Meeting (2014)

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