Photosensitive and heat-sensitive polymers, process for producing the same and process for recording information using the same

摘要

A photosensitive and heat-sensitive polymer having conjugated polyenes and sulfonic acid groups and an absorbance ratio of a strong band in the region of 1200 cm-1 to 1300 cm-1 assignable to sulfonic acid groups adjacent to conjugated polyenes of at least 3 sequence lengths to a strong band near 1050 cm-1 assignable to sulfonic acid groups in the IR spectrum of at least 0.6. The photosensitive and heat-sensitive polymer is obtained by the sulfonation of a polymer of an ethylenically unsaturated monomer having a number average molecular weight of at least 10,000 or a polymer having conjugated polyenes and a number average molecular weight of at least 10,000 and selected from specified polymers and copolymers. The photosensitive and heat-sensitive polymer is useful for information recording materials capable of being recorded by a laser beam or a thermal head for preparing printing plates, especially offset printing plates.