Preparation of flexible transparent acryl/alumina nano-hybrid materials exhibiting low thermal expansion coefficient

In this study, flexible transparent hybrid films with low thermal expansion coefficient were prepared by combination of alumina fillers and polymerizable/non-polymerizable surface modifiers with carboxyl group. Four types of alumina fillers with different shape and size were used in this study, and could modify with surface modifiers containing carboxyl groups by electrostatic interaction and disperse homogeneously in resulting hybrid films regardless of the shape and size. So the hybrid films obtained showed high transmittance around 90%T, and it was considered, from transmission electron microscopic analysis, alumina fillers were dispersed at near original filler size, without aggregation. Moreover, thermal mechanical analysis cleared that the use of pillar or fiber type filler is more effective to reduce CTE compared with plate type fillers, especially CTE of hybrid film prepared with fiber type filler was drastically decreased to 17 ppm/K, while the influence by the difference of filler shape/size was not observed on tensile properties, surface hardness. By use of fiber type alumina filler and combination of polymerizable surface modifier and non-polymerizable surface modifier which seems to interact with matrix, for optimizing of the crosslink density, it was possible to reduce CTE, while the good mechanical properties was kept. Finally, hybrid film indicating low CTE value as 19 ppm/K, high flexibility (windable against 0.4 mm radius steel bar), and good tensile properties and surface hardness which were equal to or higher than those of matrix could prepared.