Viscosity and refractive index tailored methacrylate‐based polymers

With respect to the realization of new polymer optical devices with enhanced functionality there is a need for the development of new highly transparent polymer based systems with adjustable viscosity prior to curing and tailored refractive index as well as high continuous operation temperature after solidification. The use of phenanthrene as dopant enabled the increase of the refractive index in polymethylmethacrylate from 1.49 up to 1.55(at 589 nm). A copolymerization of a dimethacrylate with the initial methylmethacrylate/polymethylmethacrylate reactive resin suppressed the dopant‐related plasticizing effect.