Sulfur-Containing Poly(meth)acrylates with High Refractive Indices and High Abbe’s Numbers

Abstract

Four new sulfur-containing monomers consisting of cyclic dithiocarbonate, norbornene, and (meth)acrylate units were synthesized to develop high refractive index polymers with high Abbe’s numbers for optical lenses. A series of poly(meth)acrylates were successfully prepared by the radical polymerization of these monomers. The obtained polymers exhibited a relatively high degradation temperature (5% weight loss) at around 290 °C in both air and nitrogen, while their glass transition temperatures were in the range of 44−109 °C. All the polymer films prepared by spin cast from the polymer solutions exhibited a good transparency in the visible region (wavelengths: 400−800 nm) and high refractive indices in the range of 1.592−1.640 (at 589 nm) with large Abbe’s numbers in the range of 40.5−44.5.