Various types of glasses, soda-lime, Pyrex, quartz, and crown glass are used as hard and transparent materials for a variety of industrial applications such as windows, displays, screens and lenses.1 However, glass materials have several limitations. First, glass is quite heavy and is two to three times heavier than plastic.2, 3 Second, glass is brittle with low toughness, which readily leads to catastrophic cracks and broken pieces; this can cause mechanical damage that injures humans.4, 5, 6 To reduce the brittleness and to increase the strength, glass surfaces are processed by controlled thermal and chemical treatments. For example, Gorilla Glass7 is chemically strengthened through an ion-exchange8, 9 process that creates a deep compression layer on the surface of the glass substrate. These glasses have high compressive stress and are widely used as protective covers for electronic displays such as laptop computer screens and mobile devices. However, the sophisticated processes involved are expensive, and the large weight is still problematic.10

In this paper, we propose a new approach to fabricating laminated film composites with a high modulus, transparency and lightweight as an alternative to glass. The laminated film composite was fabricated by alternately layering plastic PET films and methacrylate–POSS inorganic polymer interlayers and a subsequent simple UV curing process. The UV-curable viscous inorganic polymer methacrylate–POSS was mixed with an organic additive to strongly bind the PET film layers together through the cross-linking reaction. The obtained multilayered PET/POSS composites were evaluated to determine the modulus, transparency and haze.

Log in or create a free account to read this content

Gain free access to this article, as well as selected content from this journal and more on nature.com

Access through your institution

or

Sign in or create an account
Continue with Google
Continue with ORCiD