Advanced Long Shelf-Life UV Curable Refractive Index Matching Material

The Navy is seeking the new index matching materials which can significantly improve the shelf life performance of mechanical splices based on light cured index matching materials. Agiltron proposes to develop advanced fluorinated polyurethane acrylate (F-PUA) based UV curable refractive index matching materials with long shelf life, low-optical loss, and wide operating temperature. The proposed F-PUA resin will be simulated for the optimum refractive index value using I-Lab 2.0 and synthesized in two steps: i) a reaction between fluorinated polyol and diisocyanate and ii) making acrylate terminal group via the reaction of intermediate and hydroxyl functional acrylate. By homogeneously dispersing the highly stable photoinitiator with long shelf-life and high effective heat releasing agents into resin, the resultant F-PUA resin system will exhibit much improved shelf-life of longer than 1 year at room temperature and up to 50 degrees C. The new high performance F-PUA resin will also provide additional advantages of the excellent transparency, very low propagation loss, and wide range of operating temperatures. Agiltron proposed refractive index matching materials is suitable for use in fiber optic mechanical splices and can be economically scaled-up for manufacturing. The improved shelf life will be demonstrated by the accelerated shelf-life testing method during Phase I.