Composite films of polydimethylsiloxane and micro-graphite with tunable optical transmittance

Abstract

In this paper we introduce a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) composite fabricated using a simple production process and demonstrate the optical transmittance properties of this composite in the 300-1000 nm wavelength region. We control the material's transmittance by varying the microcrystalline graphite powder concentration or the composite film's thickness. In addition, we tailor the specimens into various trapezoidal shapes and load these specimens by mechanically stretching them in the direction perpendicular to both their base lines and their top lines. The advantage of this method is that a wide range of transmittance properties can be obtained for a given specimen. Furthermore, samples with different trapezoidal shapes have different transmittance tuning capabilities.