| Budget Amount *help |
¥2,900,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,900,000)
Fiscal Year 2006: ¥1,400,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,400,000)
Fiscal Year 2005: ¥1,500,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,500,000)
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| Research Abstract |
In the previous production method, aerogel transparencies were optimized for lower refractive indices of $1.010\sim1.030$, and the optical properties were quickly degraded when the refractive index became bigger than 1.030. To improve this situation, a new solvent of di-methyl-formamide (DMF) was introduced in the colloidal formation, where alcogel was made. DMF was mixed with methanol, and the sol-gel step proceeded in this alcohol mixture The transmission length of the aerogel block obtained from this method was measured to be about 40mm at 400nm wave length, while ~23mm was achieved if only methanol was used as an alcohol solvent. It is considered that this remarkable improvement is based upon the fact that DMF liquid can help to form smaller pores as the alcogel structure from measuring the aerogel internal porosity.
We varied some quantities in the liquid components when making alcogel samples, which may have affected the resulting optical characteristics to investigate the transmission dependence on the chemical quantities used in the sol-gel process. With this method, we were succeeded in produced highly transparent samples. In addition to this, hydrophobic feature has been kept. Therefore, we found that any shape of aerogels, including fiber-like shape, can be produces by cutting out with "water jet cutting device", where highly pressurized water is injected through small spot into materal in process.
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