Photodegradation of polyimides. III. The effect of chemical composition, radiation source, atmosphere, and processing

Abstract Polymide films made from diarylanhydrides with oxygen, carbonyl, and hexafluoroisopropylidene 6F bridging groups are photolabile when irradiated with unfiltered light from a medium‐pressure mercury lamp. The presence of oxygen is necessary to the photolytic degradation process, which results in the ultimate oxidative ablation of thin polyimide films. Films based on the 6F dianhydride containing a hexafluoroisopropylidene hinge group are the most unstable. However, photolysis of 6F dianhydride based polyimides in an inert atmosphere with either the unfiltered medium pressure mercury lamp or an electron beam results in no detectable changes even after long exposure times.