Conjugated polymers are strongly absorbing and highly reflecting throughout the infrared when doped to their conducting form. Conducting polymers are, therefore, ideal for use as infrared polarizers. A novel method to fabricate mechanically robust composite polymer films, oriented by tensile drawing and containing a desired fraction of doped conjugated polymers, for use as polarizers in the mid- and far infrared. UNIAX will fabricate uniform, thin, aligned films by gel-processing conducting polymer composites to produce stable, doped films with polarization rejection ratio suitable for spectroscopic work. During Phase I, the infrared-optical density and the infrared- dichroism of the oriented polyethylene/conducting polymer blends will be independently controlled and characterized, and the stability of the resulting infrared polarizers will be tested.
