Measuring and Improving Copper-Polyimide Adhesion

100 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1997.A contact angle measurement technique has been used to determine the thermodynamic adhesive strength between nano-sized copper clusters and polyimide. The copper clusters are formed under UHV conditions by using mono-layer per minute deposition rates to assist equilibrium cluster formation. Values of the strength of adhesion from these contact angle measurements are in reasonable agreement with predictions made using Fowkes' theory of non-polar interfacial adhesion. It was also predicted and observed that the copper clusters tended to embed into the polymer matrix if heated under continuous UHV conditions to temperatures near Tg of the polymer. Controlled embedding of the clusters was utilized to produce a textured interface, where the partially embedded clusters acted as "nano-nails" to anchor the metal over-layer to the underlying polyimide substrate.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD