HYBRID ORGANIC INORGANIC COPOLYMERS WITH STRONGLY HYDROGEN-BOND ACIDIC PROPERTIES FOR ACOUSTIC-WAVE AND OPTICAL SENSORS/

Hybrid organic/inorganic polymers have been prepared incorporating flu oroalkyl-substituted bisphenol groups linked using oligosiloxane space rs. These hydrogen-bond acidic materials have glass-to-rubber transiti on temperatures below room temperature and are excellent sorbents for basic vapors. The physical properties such as viscosity and refractive index can be tuned by varying the length of the oligosiloxane spacers and the molecular weight. In addition, the materials are easily cross -linked to yield solid elastomers. The potential use of these material s for chemical sensing has been demonstrated by applying them to surfa ce acoustic wave devices as thin films and detecting the hydrogen-bond basic vapor dimethyl methylphosphonate with high sensitivity. It has also been demonstrated that one of these materials with suitable visco sity and refractive index can be used to clad silica optical fibers; t he cladding was applied to freshly drawn fiber using a fiber drawing t ower. These fibers have potential as evanescent wave optical fiber sen sors.