Polymeric Copper Oxide: Preparation and Investigation of Its Structure and Optical Properties

A complex of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) with copper hydroxide was used as a precursor to obtain polymeric copper oxide through thermal decomposition. The absence of Cu(OH)₂ crystalline phase was observed for the component ratio up to 1 Cu(OH)₂ molecular unit to 3 PVA residuals. The formation of crystalline copper oxide was not observed after the dehydration of this material. UV–VIS and IR spectroscopy, and computational modeling were used to study the structure and properties of the obtained materials. A comparison with other similar materials was drawn. It was found that experimental data are in general accordance with the computations based on the polymeric model for copper hydroxide/oxide as a component of hybrid interpolymeric complex with PVA. A distinctive feature observed for polymeric copper oxide is strong broadening of the optical absorption band at 400 nm. It is suggested that this effect is caused by strong electron–phonon interaction, which is also responsible for superconductivity of copper oxide based systems.