Transparency of modified vinyl-silsesquioxane films and its validation by computing energy-band structure

Abstract

Using vinyl-silsesquioxane modified with various amounts of tetraethoxysilane (TEOS) and titanium tetrabutoxide (TTB), two kinds of hybrid films, film-vinyl-silsesquioxane-TEOS (f-VSTE) and film-vinyl-silsesquioxane-TTB (f-VSTT), were prepared. The average transparency (AT) of the modified films was measured in the ranges of the visible light region (400–750 nm) and in the near-infrared region (750–2500 nm). The AT values in these ranges are about 88% to 94%, indicating that these high-AT films can provide crops with growth energy and improvement of the photosynthetic process efficiency. The TEOS additions result in a hybrid structure (containing SiO2); an adequate addition can cause an increase in the AT radiation from sunlight. On the other hand, the TTB additions result in a hybrid structure (containing TiO2) that causes a decrease in the AT. These results were validated using molecular dynamic simulation and were calculated (with Materials Stutio software) using the density of states and the energy-band structure of the vinyl-SSO, SiO2, and TiO2 building blocks.