Chemical routes to nanostructured materials

Abstract

Chemical synthesis has been used to fabricate polymerisable nanoparticles. Agglomerate free, well crystallised particles have been obtained by hydrothermal treatment and by using surface modifiers. Polymerisable liquids are used as modifiers to obtain polymerisable particles. Suspensions of these particles were used to carry out dip and spin on coating processes, either for optical applications or for superhard coatings. For optical purposes, a wet coating antireflection technology has been developed. The superhard coatings have been developed for polycarbonate plastic glazing for automobiles. These coatings are employed on top of nanocomposite (Nanomer) hard coatings and are cured by UV polymerisation. They show abrasion resistance of 1.5 haze after 1000 taber abrador cycles, a value which is similar to glass.