Analysis of the Processing-Pressure Dependent Refractive Index of Polycarbonate by Transmission Measurements of Glass-Filled Specimen

In this study, the influence of pressure during processing on the refractive index (RI) of polycarbonate (PC) was investigated by transmission measurements on glass-filled samples with a spectrometer. In order to isolate the pressure dependence of the RI from other influencing parameters such as cooling rate, orientation and stress states, the samples were prepared in a pressure-specific volume-Temperature (pvT) instrument under constant cooling rate and temperature history and without shear effects. Subsequently, the RI was determined at the intersection of the dispersion curves of the glass and the polymer by evaluating the wavelength of the maximal transmission of the samples. The mean RI over the entire cross section of the sample is determined by the transmission measurements without complex sample preparation. The investigations show that the RI of PC increases by 3.26 E-6 per bar with increasing pressure. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 2019. (c) 2019 The Authors. Polymer Engineering & Science published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of Society of Plastics Engineers.