Diamond-like Carbon Coatings on Polymers

Transparent armor is an important piece of equipment for the war fighter in today's dangerous battlefields. With advances in weaponry, more ballistic resistant transparent armor is needed to keep our soldiers safe. SMRC proposes a clay-polymer nanocomposite coating to help increase the ballistic protection and abrasion resistance of current transparent armor solutions while maintaining optical clarity. The proposed coating, applied via layer-by-layer (LbL) self-assembly, is advantageous over more traditional methods in that it can be deposited at room temperature with a simple dip-rinse-repeat process. Preliminary experiments show a 5 % increase in V50 ballistic limit for a 6 clay-polymer bilayer coating deposited on polycarbonate when compared to neat polycarbonate. Additional layers and other polymers are expected to give an even better response. PPG Aerospace's Transparent Armor and Specialty Products Division has expressed interest in developing this coating technology.