This work successfully prepared an UV curable organic-inorganic hybrid
material consisting of organic modified colloidal silica. Applications of UV
curable organic-inorganic hybrid materials include abrasion resistant
coatings, photo-patternable thin films and waveguides. Colloidal silica
containing reactive functional groups were also prepared by reacting organic
silane and tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS) using sol-gel process. In
addition, the efficiency of grafting organic moiety onto silica
nanoparticles was investigated by applying TGA and FTIR techniques.
Experimental results indicated a strong interdependence between surface
modification efficiency and solution pH. Acrylate-SiO2 hybrid
formation could result in a shifting of thermal degradation temperature of
organic component from about 200°C to near 400°C. In addition, the stability
of organic modified colloidal silica in UV curable formula and the physical
properties of resulting coatings were discussed. Furthermore, the morphology
of organic modified colloidal silica was investigated by performing TEM and
SEM studies‥
