• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.32 no.spc8
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• pp.3074-3080
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• 2011

We synthesized three novel poly(norbornene bisimide)s by ring opening metathesis polymerization (ROMP) and subsequent hydrogenation. Their thermal, mechanical and optical properties were investigated with TGA, DMA, UV-Vis spectrometer, and optical reflectometer. The new polymers showed high glass transition temperatures over $260^{\circ}C$ and good thermal stability with 5% wt-loss temperature higher than $390^{\circ}C$. When solvent casted, they yielded optically transparent and dimensionally stable films with a relatively low coefficient of thermal expansion of about 50 ppm $K^{-1}$. Therefore, the bisimide moieties substantially enhanced thermal and dimensional stabilities, as compared with normal ROMP-prepared polynorbornene films. Though the water uptake was increased to 0.6 wt-%, this water uptake is still considerably lower than that for polyethersulfones (1.4 wt-%) or polyimides (2.0 wt-%). Hence, the new poly(norbornene bisimide)s may become attractive candidates for flexible substrates of optoelectronic devices such as displays and photovoltaic solar cells.