Method for the Controlled Formation and Placement of Metal Layers in Polyimide Films

摘要

It has been known for over a century that bulk properties of materials are not necessarily exhibited when reduced in size to the nano size regime. Our group has been researching the metallization of highperformance polymer films. These metallized films consist of distinct regions: a conductive metal surface layer and a layer comprised of metal nanoparticles dispersed in polyimide. The process produces surface metallized (Ag, Au, Pd and Pt) polyimide films by simultaneous thermal reduction and thermal imidization of metal ion doped polyamic acid films.Modification of the thermal process allows for limited control of the thickness of the metallized surface layer of the films. However the thermal process alone does not allow for variations in particle size within the films. The metallized surface layer is affected by temperature and time at temperature as depicted in Figure 1.