Infrared (IR) optical technology are widely used in optical communication, military and defense applications for high quality imaging in pure darkness. Currently, there exist numerous infrared inorganic transmitting materials, including semiconductors, alkali and alkaline earth metal halides, oxide glasses and chalcogenide glasses that are typically integrated into devices as lenses, or free standing windows. Specifically, chalcogenide glasses (e.g., zinc selenide-ZnS) are typically amorphous ionic solid networks that incorporate sulfide, selenide, or telleride counter anions. These materials also have high refractive index (n &gt; 2.0) in the range of 2-5 microns while retaining high IR transparency and low losses. While both semiconductors, or amorphous chalcogenide glasses exhibit excellent optical properties as IR transmitting materials, these materials are also expensive and hazardous to handle and process during fabrication into device components. While polymeric materials offer numerous advantages for melt, or solution processing to fabricate mid-IR optical components, the vast majority of synthetic polymers possess prohibitively low refractive indices and poor IR transparency. To address these limitations, we have developed a new class of IR optical polymers based on chalcogenide hybrid inorganic/organic polymers (CHIPs), that possess the highest refractive indices of any synthetic polymer (<i>n</i> &gt; 2.0 from 600-3000 nm) and excellent mid-IR transparency. We will discuss our recent efforts to prepare and process these materials into optical components for mid-IR imaging. 

Chalcogenide hybrid inorganic/organic polymers (CHIPs): A new class of transmissive polymeric materials for mid-IR imaging

254th National Meeting (2017)

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