Small-Angle X-Ray Scattering Study on Nanostructures of Polyimide Films

Inorganic nanohybrid polyimide (PI) is widely applied in electrical and electronic devices for its outstanding insulating properties. Samples 100CR and 100NH are made in Dupont. Among them, 100NH is a kind of pure PI films; however, 100CR is a kind of inorganic nanohybrid PI films with excellent corona-resistance. The nanostructure of PI films is investigated with small-angle x-ray scattering technique and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The normalized volume fractions of the scatterers in the specimens are obtained with a tangent-by-tangent data analysis for the small-angle x-ray scattering data. The multi-hierarchical scatterers of 100NH can be divided into two dominant components, i.e., the sharp component and the wide component. The sharp component is corresponding to the contribution of PI molecular chains, and the wide component includes the aggregates formed by PI molecular chains and the film has nested dual-fractal characteristics, nevertheless the 100CR film possesses three types of scale scattering made up of inorganic nanoparticles, molecular chains and aggregates. The present films have multi-fractal structures. The distribution and structure of scattering body of two kinds of PI films are analyzed. The results of SAXS agree well with those of TEM methods.