Photocurable polymer-gold nanoparticle composites

Due to their unique properties, metallic nanoparticles have gained special interest in the last years. One of the key point to use these nano-objects in chemistry, biology or physics is to control their incorporation in the host matrix and their impact on the material elaboration and final properties. Among different matrix available, photopolymers presents many advantages such as fast curing, high final conversion and spatio-temporal selectivity of the reaction. We report the preparation and characterization of photopolymerizable films doped with gold nanoparticles. The influence of the presence of the nanoparticles on the photopolymerization process was investigated by Real Time FTER. The characterization of the film was conducted by AFM in Pulsed Force Mode. This study shied new lights on the particularities induced by the presence of metallic nanoparticles in the photopolymerizable film. ©2005 IEEE.