The group research has begun in 1978. The Group has collaborated with a number of laboratories throughout the world. Nowadays, it consists of 10 members and has four labs for conducting studies on laser-induced chemical reactions and one lab for synthetic chemistry.

Lasers: TEA CO₂ (University Plovdiv) laser, tunable (home-made) CW CO₂ laser, cw CO₂ (Synrad) laser, ArF (ELI 94) laser, N₂ (University Plovdiv) laser, Nd:YAG laser, He-Ne laser.

Analytical equipment: FTIR Nicolet spectrometer, UV Shimadzu spectrometer, UV Ocean optics spectrometer, GC/MS Shimadzu spectrometers, Shimadzu and Carlo-Erba gas chromatographs, Kratos mass spectrometer, Cahn microbalances.

Fields of interest

Laser-induced gas-phase decomposition of organic and organometallic compounds

Various cw CO₂ laser-induced reactions of organic compounds in the presence of energy conveying SF₆ proceed in a specific way due to the absence of heterogeneous stages that are often very difficult to obviate in conventional hot wall reactors.

Sample references:

J. Pola: Laser powered homogeneous decomposition of allyl chloride, J. Chem. Soc., Perkin Trans. II, 245 (1983).

J. Pola: New pathways in laser induced thermal gas-phase chemistry, Spectrochim. Acta 46A 607 (1990).

R. Fajgar, J. Pola: Laser homogeneous decomposition of spiro(2.n)alkanes (n=2-5), J. Org. Chem. 58, 7709 (1993).

Laser ablation of polymers

IR laser ablation of perfhalogenated and organosilicon polymers yieds ultra-fine powders and nano-structured films with unique properties. Thus, e.g. laser fabricated hybrids of siloxanes and polysilylenes of superior thermal stability are obtained from poly[oxy(tetramethyldisilane-1,2-diyl)].

Sample references:

J. Pola, J. Vítek, Yu. P. Polyakov, L. E. Gusel’ nikov, P. M. Matveychev, S. A. Bashkirova, J. Tláskal, R. Mayer : Appl. Organometal. Chem. 5, 57 (1991).

R. Fajgar, J. Vítek, J. Pola, Z. Bastl, J. Tláskal, I. Gregora, L. McGhee, P. R.Stevenson, J. M. Winfield: IR laser degradation od some fluoro-polymers.,      J. Fluor. Chem. 72, 111 (1995).

J. Pola, J. Kupčík, V. Blechta, A. Galíková, A. Galík, J. Šubrt, Jan Kurjata, J. Chojnowski: Thermally stable polyoxocarbosilane thin films by pulsed IR laser ablation of poly[oxy(tetramethyldisilane-1,2-diyl)], Chem. Mater. 14, 1242 (2002).

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Laser induced polymerization in the gas phase

Unsaturated stable organic molecules or transient organic and organosilicon species are gas-phase polymerized by using UV or IR laser radiation and yield various coatings, powders, or adherent films.

Sample references:>

J . Pola, A. Lyčka, L. E. Gusel’nikov, V. V. Volkova: laser induced chemical vapour deposition of polymethanimine. J. Chem. Soc., Chem. Commun., 20 (1991).

J. Pola, M. Urbanová, Z. Bastl, J. Šubrt, A. Ouchi, M. Sakuragi and H. Morita, Laser -induced formation of polymers from unsaturated (organyl)trimethylsilanes in the gas phase. Polymer, 42,1311-1318 (2001).

M. Urbanová, J. Vítek, Z. Bastl, K. Ubik, J. Pola: Laser induced chemical vapour deposition of polypyridine films. J. Mater. Chem. 5,849 (1955).

UV laser gas-phase photolysis of silicon- germanium- selenium- and tellurium- containing organic compounds

UV laser gas-phase photolysis of various organometallic compounds has been studied to reveal the decomposition course and find out suitability of these decompositions for chemical vapour deposition of novel type or nanostructured films of polysiloxanes, polycarbosilanes and tellurium and selenium.

Sample references:

D. Čukanová, J.Pola, Efficient laser induced generation and polymerization of highly unsaturated compound diethynylsilene in the gas phase. J. Organometal. Chem. 453, 17 (1993).

J. Pola, Z. Bastl, J. Tláskal, H. Beckers, H. Bűrger, P. Moritz : Laser induced explosive decomposition of (fluoromethyl)silanes. Reductive chemistry initiated by laser photolysis. Organometallics 12, 171 (1993).

J. Pola and A. Ouchi, UV laser-induced gas-phase photolysis of selenophene and tellurophene: extrusion of Te and Se and intramolecular 1,3-H shift competing with  b -C-C cleavage in C₄ H₄residue. J. Org. Chem., 65, 2759(2000).

M. Urbanová, Z. Bastl, J. Šubrt, J. Pola, IR laser-induced thermolysis and UV laser-induced photolysis of 1,3-diethyldisiloxane for chemical vapour deposition of nanotextured hydridoalkylsilicones.  J. Mater. Chem. 11, 1557-62 (2001).