Reactive lamination via photoreactive polymers

Lamination is one of the most prominent ways to generate multilayer foils from single sheets. Such foils are interesting for micro-optical systems which carry optical components and additional functional layers, e.g. protective coatings. However, conventional lamination is often not applicable to chemically different polymeric materials. Two prominent examples are foils of cyclic olefin copolymers (COC) and poly(methylmethacrylate) PMMA, which are very important polymers for optical applications. We have now developed reactive polymer systems which are able to chemically attach to any polymeric material providing aliphatic C,H bonds. The mechanism is based on CHIC (C,H insertion crosslinking) reactions using photoreactive carbonyl components incorporated in the polymer backbone, such as anthraquinone, xanthone or thioxanthone derivates. The reactive lamination process is performed by deposition of photoreactive materials by spray coating on a polymer foil, followed by lamination with a second foil and activation by UV light. We will present the mechanism of this reactive lamination process and results of the mechanical characterization of the multilayer foils.