Influence of photoconductivity on the study of trap levels in polyimide films by photo-stimulated discharge

Abstract

In this paper, the distribution of the charge trap levels in polyimide (PI) films was investigated by using photo-stimulated discharge (PSD) technique, which was to explore the effect of photoconductivity on photo-stimulated discharge current. The PSD spectra show that the photo-stimulated discharge current of the PI films is mainly distributed in the range of 649–320 nm, but there are two significant current peaks when the wavelength is 300 nm and 244 nm, respectively. By studying the reason of generating two current peaks, it is concluded that the two current peaks are not generated by trapped charge de-trapping but generated by photoconductivity of charge-transfer complex in the PI films. According to the research, it is concluded that the trap levels in PI films are mainly distributed in the range of 1.92 eV–3.88 eV.