Optical Design of Low-Haze Transparent Wood
4 affiliations
- 1Department of Fibre and Polymer Technology, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Teknikringen 56, Stockholm, Sweden, 100 44
- 2School of Engineering Sciences, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Hannes Alfvens väg 12, Stockholm, Sweden, 114 19
- 3Laboratory of Organic Electronics
- 4Linköping University
Abstract
Transparent wood (TW) composite is a structural optical material for light‑transmitting applications. TW with low haze (scattering) remains challenging due to multiple light‑scattering mechanisms at different length scales. Interfacial debonding, limited polymer accessibility in the cell wall, and refractive index (RI) mismatch between wood and polymer phases contribute to forward scattering and haze. Here we establish an optical design strategy to reduce haze/scattering in TW composites by suppressing scattering sources. Chemical modification through NaOH swelling and acetylation is employed to reduce optical defects, while the polymer phase is tailored by tuning the RI. A series of TW composites enables decoupling of different scattering mechanisms and analysis of their contributions through transmittance, haze, angular light‑distribution, and ultra-fast time resolved measurements. RI tuning combined with chemical reduction of interfacial optical defects leads to a strong decrease in haze (down to ~ 45% for a 1mm thick sample). A more isotropic transmitted light distribution confirms suppression of refraction-based scattering. The study provides a mechanism-based framework for designing low-haze TW and other cellulose-based optical composites.
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BibTeX
@misc{chen2026optical,
title = {{Optical Design of Low-Haze Transparent Wood}},
author = {Hui Chen and Seyed Ehsan Hadi and Zheheng Song and Ilya Sychugov and Lars A. Berglund},
howpublished = {ChemRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.26434/chemrxiv.15010587/v1},
url = {https://chemrxiv.org/doi/full/10.26434/chemrxiv.15010587/v1},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Optical Design of Low-Haze Transparent Wood
AU - Hui Chen
AU - Seyed Ehsan Hadi
AU - Zheheng Song
AU - Ilya Sychugov
AU - Lars A. Berglund
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/16
PB - ChemRxiv
DO - 10.26434/chemrxiv.15010587/v1
UR - https://chemrxiv.org/doi/full/10.26434/chemrxiv.15010587/v1
AB - Transparent wood (TW) composite is a structural optical material for light‑transmitting applications. TW with low haze (scattering) remains challenging due to multiple light‑scattering mechanisms at different length scales. Interfacial debonding, limited polymer accessibility in the cell wall, and refractive index (RI) mismatch between wood and polymer phases contribute to forward scattering and haze. Here we establish an optical design strategy to reduce haze/scattering in TW composites by suppressing scattering sources. Chemical modification through NaOH swelling and acetylation is employed to reduce optical defects, while the polymer phase is tailored by tuning the RI. A series of TW composites enables decoupling of different scattering mechanisms and analysis of their contributions through transmittance, haze, angular light‑distribution, and ultra-fast time resolved measurements. RI tuning combined with chemical reduction of interfacial optical defects leads to a strong decrease in haze (down to ~ 45% for a 1mm thick sample). A more isotropic transmitted light distribution confirms suppression of refraction-based scattering. The study provides a mechanism-based framework for designing low-haze TW and other cellulose-based optical composites.
ER -