STRUCTURAL FEATURES OF SOL-GEL DERIVED HYBRID INORGANIC ORGANIC NETWORK CERAMER MATERIALS BY SMALL-ANGLE X-RAY-SCATTERING

Hybrid inorganic-organic materials called ceramers have been prepared in our laboratories utilizing the sol-gel approach. These materials have been previously characterized, and a general morphological mode has been proposed based primarily on the small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) data. This paper focuses on the morphological model and tests its validity (using SAXS) under a variety of variables such as temperature, metal alkoxide content, oligomer spacer length, effect of different solvents, etc. The last part of this paper further addresses the nature of the inorganic particles formed in these systems and discusses their physical features based on fractal concepts.