Application of deuterium oxide in producing silicon containing and metal containing materials

• Main Authors: PAN GUANG, XIAO GAOZHI, ZHANG PINQING, ZHANG ZHIYI, ZHOU MING
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 06.12.2001
• Edition: 7
• Subjects: CHEMICAL COMPOSITION OF GLASSES, GLAZES, OR VITREOUSENAMELS; CHEMISTRY; GLASS; JOINING GLASS TO GLASS OR OTHER MATERIALS; METALLURGY; MINERAL OR SLAG WOOL; SURFACE TREATMENT OF FIBRES OR FILAMENTS MADE FROM GLASS,MINERALS OR SLAGS; SURFACE TREATMENT OF GLASS

Deuterium oxide, D2O, also called heavy water, is used for the hydrolysis of silanes and metal compounds. The D2O-hydrolyzed silanes polycondense much easier than H2O-hydrolyzed silanes, resulting in a fast Si-O-Si network build up. The most important feature of using D2O is that the final materials are 100% free of O-H and the residual O-D bond does not have an absorption peak in the wavelength range of 1.0 to 1.8 mum, which is crucial in reducing optical loss at the wavelengths of 1.3 and especially 1.55 mum. O-H free sol-gel materials with low optical loss have been developed based on this process. D2O may be applied in all kinds of hydrolysis-processes, such as the sol-gel process of silanes and metal compounds, the synthesis of polysiloxane, and may be extended to other silica and metal-oxides deposition processes for example, flame hydrolysis deposition (FHD) whenever water is used or O-H bond involved. The concept of replacing O-H bond with O-D bond is applicable to any O-H bond containing materials used in optical based telecommunication.