Photopolymerizations were carried out using monofunctional monomers methyl or ethyl-(alpha-hydroxymethyl)acrylate (MHMA and EHMA, respectively) with multifunctional crosslinkers. The effect of crosslinker type (acrylate versus methacrylate) and functionality (di-, tri-, tetra- and penta/hexaacrylates) on polymerization rates and conversions were investigated. RHMA systems (monomer plus crosslinker) reached very high conversions (70-83%) for all systems with the exception of dipentaerythritol penta/hexaacrylate systems. Network T-g played an important role in final conversions with dipentaerythritol penta/hexaacrylate and pentaerythritol tetraacrylate, while EHMA (with a lower T-g) went to higher conversions than MHMA. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.