Optically Isotropic, Colorless, and Flexible PITEs/TiO2 and ZrO2 Hybrid Films with Tunable Refractive Index, Abbe Number, and Memory Properties

Abstract

Abstract A series of novel polyimidothioethers (PITEs) and the respective polymer hybrids of titania or zirconia with fantastic thermal stability and optical properties have been successfully prepared. These colorless PITEs with high transparency were synthesized by Michael polyaddition from commercially available dithiol and bismaleimides monomers. The PITE with sulfide and hydroxyl groups (S-OH) and the corresponding hybrid films declare ultra-lowest birefringence value of 0.002 and tunable refractive index (1.65–1.81 for S-OH/titania and 1.65–1.80 for S-OH/zirconia), implying large potential to the optical applications in the future. Moreover, the S-OH/zirconia hybrid films exhibit higher Abbe’s number and optical transparency than those of S-OH/titania system because larger energy band gap of ZrO2. Furthermore, by adding titania and zirconia as electron acceptor into S-OH system, the charge transfer complex can be facilitated and stabilized caused by the lower LUMO energy level of hybrid materials. Consequently, the devices of memory prepared from these polymer films of hybrid showed interesting and adjustable memory behavior from DRAM, SRAM, to WORM at various titania or zirconia contents with a large ON/OFF ratio (108), denoting that the memory devices derived from these highly transparent novel S-OH/TiO2 and S-OH/ZrO2 hybrid films are attractive for the electrical applications.