The Effect of Curing on the Thermomechanical Properties of BPDA-PDA Polyimide Thin Films

The effect of the heating rate during curing on the thermal expansivity and mechanical properties of poly(p-phenylene biphenyltetracarboximide) (BPDA-PDA) polyimide thin films has been investigated in the range from 3 to 40 μm, which is commonly used for packaging application. Structural characterization was carried out using birefringence and wide-angle x-ray diffraction (WAXD) techniques. The morphology and packing order are found to be strongly influenced by the heating rate and, to a lesser extent, by the film thickness. The themomechanical properties of the polyimide films show an overall variation consistent with the changes in the molecular packing, thus demonstrating a close structure-property correlation. For slow-cure films, the variation of the molecular order is almost independent of film thickness. In contrast, the molecular order for the fast-cured films strongly depends on the thickness. The in-plane chain orientation decreases, but crystallinity increases with increasing film thickness. The heating rate gives rise to an opposite effect on the morphology for thin (∼ 5 μm) and thick films (∼ 38 μm). For thin films, high heating rate yields a high degree of crystallinity and in-plane chain orientation of the polymeric chains, leading to low thermal expansion coefficient (TEC) and high mechanical strength. In contrast, high heating rate for the thicker film gives a low in-plane chain orientation, leading to high TEC and low mechanical strength. The close correlation between morphology and the thermomechanical properties such as Young's modulus, stress-strain relationship, and lateral TEC is demonstrated.