Fluorine atom substituted aromatic polyimides: Unlocking extraordinary dielectric performance and comprehensive advantages

Low-dielectric polymers face prominent development challenges at high frequency. Particularly, the relationship between the high-frequency dielectric loss and polymer structures remains not clear enough. Besides, the strategies for achieving low dielectric loss usually have to scarify other important materials properties, e.g., heat resistance or dimensional stability. Herein, fluorine-containing aromatic polyimides were systematically investigated. Among them, simple fluorine atom (-F) substituted polyimides exhibit remarkable low dielectric loss at high frequency (10 GHz) as well as comprehensive advantages, including near-zero thermal expansion coefficient, extremely high thermal decomposition stability, high optical transmittance and excellent mechanical properties. The fundamental mechanisms of low dielectric loss are fully discussed. Benefiting from the unique electric effect and compact size of -F group, -F substituted polyimides display low dipolar density and strongly restricted dipolar motion, contributing to a reduced permanent dipolar polarization loss. Moreover, the concept of induced dipolar polarization was introduced to illustrate the nontrivial impact of F-substituted effect on conjugated electron cloud polarization loss in aromatic polymer system. This work not only provides valuable insights for understanding the mechanism of dielectric loss at high frequency for aromatic polymers, but also opens up broader application possibilities of polyimides in microelectronic and wireless communications industries.