Characterization of rare-earth organic complexes-doped PMMA

The optical properties of rare-earth organic complexes doped poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) have been studied because of their great prospect of application in optical devices, such as optical fibers, fiber lasers, amplifiers and waveguides. Eu3+, Pr3+ and Tb3+ ions were encapsulated in tri(dibenzoylmethane) (DBM) and tri(thenoyltrifluoroacetone) (TTA) chelates, then Eu3+ complexes were doped in MMA before the polymerization, and stirred thoroughly during the polymerization. These complexes were characterized by elementary analysis, FT-IR, XPS and ICP, and fluorescent properties of rare earth complexes-doped PMMA were measured by fluorescence spectrometer. Analysis reveals that Eu(TTA)(3) is a promising dopant for use in rare-earth-doped PMMA in the research, the complex can be doped to high concentrations in PMMA systems without quenching, providing means for polymer amplification devices. For the rare-earth-doped PMMA samples, an effective energy transfer between the ligands and rare-earth ions is observed and discussed. To our knowledge, the effect of molecular weight of PMMA on the fluorescent properties of rare-earth-doped PMMA has not been reported, and the result indicates that the larger the molecular weight of PMMA is, the better the fluorescent property of the system.