Effects of chemical structure and precursor on optical properties,thermo-mechanical properties,and molecular orientation and order of thin films of stiff aromatic polyimides

Thin films of rigid poly(p-phenylene pyromellitimide) (PMDA-PDA) and semi-rigid poly(p-phenylene biphenyltetracarboximide) (BPDA-PDA), prepared by thermal imidization of the respective poly(amic acid) and poly(amic ethyl ester) precursors, were characterized with respect to their optical, thermomechanical and structural properties. Both polyimides exhibit an unusually large anisotropy between the in-plane and out-of-plane refractive indices, with n ranging from 0.198 to 0.216 for PMDA-PDA and from 0.230 to 0.242 for BPDA-PDA, nearly independent of the nature of the initial polyimide precursor, film thickness, and film preparation method. PMDA-PDA films exhibit low coefficients of thermal expansion (CTE's) of 6.5 and 8.2 ppm/C for the acid-derived and the ester-derived polyimides, respectively. In comparison, the BPDA-PDA films show CTE values of 4.3 and 18.0 for the acid-derived and ester-derived samples, respectively, despite the small differences in their optical anisotropies. Wide-angle x-ray diffraction patterns obtained in reflection and transmission for the various samples reveal a strong in-plane chain orientation for both PMDA-PDA and BPDA-PDA polyimides, with somewhat better intermolecular packing order for the ester-derived polyimide films. These effects of chemical structure and precursor on properties and structures of the polyimide films are discussed in light of recent theoretical considerations of semiflexible polymers.Dedicated to Prof E. W. Fischer on the occasion of his 65th birthday