Porous Polyimide Composite Films Containing Mesoporous Hollow Silica Nanospheres with Ultralow Dielectric Constant and Dissipation Loss

Porous polyimide hybrid films with ultralow dielectric constant and dissipation loss were synthesized during chemical imidization and rapid evaporation of polymer solutions. Polyimide (PI) of bis(4-aminophenyl)-1,4-diisopropylbenzene (BISP) and 4,4′-(hexafluoroisopropylidene) diphthalic anhydride (6FDA) were synthesized in N-methylpyrrolidinone (NMP) to yield the corresponding poly(amic acid)s (PAA)s, which were then chemically imidized. To reduce the dielectric properties of the porous PI films, amine-functionalized, surface-modified hollow silica nanoparticles (AHNS) with various sizes from 100 nm to 1 μm, prepared via sol-gel process, were added with PAA at 3, 5, or 10 % weight content, followed by chemical imidization to produce the porous PI/AHNS films. To avoid the high-volume shrinkage of wet gels and maintain the high porosity of the PI with low polarizability, AHNS nanoparticles were added to the porous structure of the PI xerogels as a physical crosslinker. The polyimide hybrid film with 10 nm AHNS nanoparticles at 10 % weight content showed a dielectric constant of 1.151 and a dissipation rate of 0.001 at a frequency of 10 GHz.