NSF Award
0232925
This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will develop a novel nanoparticle-fluoropolymer (NP-FP) material that fills an immediate commercial need and represents a prototype for a family of compositions that should spawn new products, businesses, and industries. Desirable optical properties of materials often come mixed with undesirable properties. An example is the yttrium iron garnet (YIG) which will be employed in an all-fiber optical circulator. While it provides strong Faraday rotation and optical transparency, these come with a high refractive index and an inconvenient crystalline structure that makes incorporation in coatings or molded components difficult. Deposition limitations have been overcome by incorporating YIG nanoparticles into a polymer matrix, but hydrocarbon polymer matrices also have moderately high refractive indices and strong optical absorption beyond 700 nm. The project will develop solvent-cast amorphous fluoropolymers films impregnated with YIG nanoparticles. The porosity, inertness, and low refractive index characteristics of amorphous fluoropolymer materials offer great hope that a variety of nanoparticle-impregnated materials will be developed based upon nanoparticle modification techniques.<br/><br/>The commercial applications for this technology will be to the telecommunications, photonics, and sensor technologies. The networking market alone will benefit greatly from this technology.
