ORGANIC/INORGANIC COMPOSITE MATERIAL AND OPTICAL ELEMENT

摘要

An organic/inorganic composite material which changes little in refractive index with changing temperature and has excellent transparency. This organic/inorganic composite material is an organic/inorganic composite material comprising a resin and fine inorganic particles dispersed therein, and is characterized in that the fine inorganic particles dispersed in the resin are in the state of primary particles or of particles each composed of aggregated primary particles and that when the diameters of these dispersed particles are expressed by D and the distance between the center of any of the dispersed particles and the center of the dispersed particle adjacent thereto is expressed by L, then the particle diameters (D) and the center-to-center distance (L) satisfy the following relationships (1) and (2). Relationship (1) D<SUB>50</SUB> = 30 nm Relationship (2) L<SUB>p</SUB> = 30 nm (In the relationship (1), "D<SUB>50</SUB>" means the particle diameter (D) corresponding to that point in a number distribution function for the dispersed particles at which the cumulative number reaches 50% of the number of all particles. In the relationship (2), "L<SUB>p</SUB>" means the peak center-to-center distance (L) in a frequency distribution function for the center-to-center distances (L).)