Development and Morphological Characterization of Novel Polyimide/Metal nano Hybrid Materials

Abstract

Two different polyimide structures were synthesized by two-step polycondensation reaction in solution, in the first step using equimolar amounts of one of two aromatic diamine (DDM or MMDA) and one dianhydride (6HDA) in N,N-dimethylacetamide (DMAc) to obtain the poly(amic acids), followed in the second step by thermal imidization. In order to obtain novel polyimide/metal nano hybrid materials, conductive Ni/Cu nanoparticles were embedded on polyimide substrates, using laser ablation technique. The morphology of the resulted thin metal layers was investigated using atomic force microscopy (AFM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX). The results highlighted different surface characteristics of the auto-organized metallic/polymer nanoparticles, depending on the chemical structure of the polyimide substrate, the parameters of the laser ablation setup, the deposition time, the type of the metallic target. The obtained features of these polyimide/metal nano hybrid materials can be employed as an indicator of the possibility of using them for potential applications as conductive circuits or substrates for adhesion control.