OPTICAL COMPOSITES BASED ON POROUS SILICA GLASSES

Problems of synthesis of composites with different polymer structure fillers are discussed. Time and temperature conditions to get the samples transparent in all visible spectrum region have been found. The preservation of quartzoid skeleton structure of composites is confirmed experimentally by electron microscopy. Peculiarities of some optical, physical and thermomechanical properties connected with pore polymer filler nature have been discovered and their explanations may be based on the type of packing of marcomolecules, synthesized inside confined pore volume. For a composite with PMMA filler the radiation strength value is 3-4 times higher than for bulk polymer. So the investigations of physical and mechanical composite parameters have shown that these new lightweight glasslike materials can be employed for optical applications in the range of temperature from 20-degrees-C up to 150-170-degrees-C without any loss of their properties, in contrast to pure polymers used in optics.