Sulfur-containing poly(meth)acrylates with high refractive indices and high Abbe's numbers

Four new sulfur-containing monomers consisting of cyclic dithiocarbonate, norbornene, and (meth)acrylate units were synthesized to develop high refractive index polymers with high Abbe's numbers for optical lenses. A series of poly(meth)acrylates were successfully prepared by the radical polymerization of these monomers. The obtained polymers exhibited a relatively high degradation temperature (5% weight loss) at around 290 degrees C in both air and nitrogen, while their glass transition temperatures were in the range of 44-109 degrees C. All the polymer films prepared by spin cast from the polymer solutions exhibited a good transparency in the visible region (wavelengths: 400-800 nm) and high refractive indices in the range of 1.592-1.640 (at 589 nm) with large Abbe's numbers in the range of 40.5-44.5.