Effect of Alkyl Group on the Photocrosslinking of Alkyl Methacrylate Based Copolymers

Abstract

Three series of alkyl methacrylate based copolymers having photo-reactive side chains (C=C double bond) were synthesized and examined their performances as photopolymer in the presence of suitable oxime ester or triazine type radical photo-initiators for 365 nm light. Along to our previous report showed that correlation was observed between photochemical reactivity and chain length of the side chain/density of reactive side chain in the cyclohexyl methacrylate main chain. Our proposed mechanism is that sterically stacked nonpolar cyclohexyl groups may push out the polar reactive side chains, and length and density of the side chain controls cross linking between two reactive sites in the single main chain or two different main chains. Now we have examined structural effect of the alkyl groups on the efficiency of photocrosslinking. We have examined 5 series and totally 15 polymers. As a result, cyclohexyl methacrylate based copolymer showed excellent performance for polymerization.