Preparation and characterization of fullerenes containing sol-gel glass

Transparent materials containing C-60 are interesting because of their optical limiting properties. Fullerenes can be incorporated in sol-gel matrices, but their poor solubility in the solvents commonly used in the process and their tendency to form clusters constitutes the main experimental problem. For this reason we have synthesized C-60 derivatives with high solubility and having reactive groups that could covalently bond to the inorganic network By this way and by an optimization of the sol-gel preparation procedure, transparent films and bulks were obtained. Good optical limiting performances were demonstrated by experimental measurements.