Optronic systems entirely produced from polymers may serve as sensor foils for many applications such as structural monitoring. It is crucial for such applications to control the optical properties of all materials in use but it is of equal importance to master all surfaces and interfaces involved in such systems. These can be numerous: Optical elements like light sources, wave guides or sensors need to be fixed on substrate or carrier foils, claddings need to wrap waveguides, connections join different elements and protective coatings shield all functional units from scratches or finger prints.<br/>We have developed chemistries to generate surface-attached polymer networks on other polymers using polymers with thermally or photochemically reactive groups for C,H insertion crosslinking (CHIC) reactions. The presentation will describe how these materials are used to generate waveguides and other optically active units such that optical properties can be varied over a fairly wide range. In addition, we will show that C,H insertion reactions can also proceed across interfaces such that a strong adhesion between the various layers can be assured by basically generating monolithic multilayer assemblies.<br/>Aside from these practical implications we will also present theoretical studies that allow us to understand the crosslinking reactions and to predict the performance of such materials in such applications.

Thin surface-attached polymer networks for planar optronic system

251st National Meeting (2016)

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