Optical Properties of a Sulfur-Rich Organically Modified Chalcogenide Polymer Synthesized via Inverse Vulcanization and Containing an Organometallic Comonomer

Inverse vulcanization is the method by which molten sulfur can be combined with comonomers to form stable polymers termed "organically modified chalcogenide" or "ORMOCHALC" polymers. One advantage to ORMOCHALC polymers is that they can possess important optical properties, such as high refractive index and strong infrared (IR) transmission, while being easier to fabricate than glass materials with similar optical properties. In the present work, a new ORMOCHALC is fabricated by using tetravinyltin as a comomoner with sulfur. This is the first example of an organometallic molecule being used as a comonomer to develop ORMOCHALCs. The result is an ORMOCHALC polymer that has the highest refractive index reported for a "sulfur and comonomer" polymer and that demonstrates unprecedented transmission in the IR region.