ABSTRACT
The field of polymer nanocomposite materials has attracted great attention, imagination, and interest from polymer scientists and engineers in recent years. The simple premise of using building blocks having nanosize dimensions makes it possible to create new polymeric materials exhibiting improved physical properties, such as unprecedented flexibility. Silsesquioxanes are nanostructures having the empirical formula RSiO1.5, where R is a hydrogen atom or an organic functional group, such as an alkyl, alkylene, acrylate, hydroxyl, or epoxide unit. Figure 6.1 illustrates the silsesquioxanes that may be formed from random, ladder, cage, and partial cage structures [1].
