Abstract
In order to further expand the applications of polyimide, titanium oxide (TiO2) was deposited on flexible Kapton substrate by successive ionic layer adsorption and reaction (SILAR) method at room temperature. The growth process was systematically investigated by analyzing the changes of surface structures, film thickness, water wettability and adhesion work during film deposition. The results showed the SILAR TiO2 films growth initializes in an island-like pattern and then gradually transforms into a 2D layered manner after 10 deposition cycles with a growth rate of about 0.5 nm/cycle. With the increase of cycle number, the water wettability and adhesion work increased to ensure the deposition process to be continued. Interestingly, the obtained TiO2 film exhibits weak crystallinity, which is attributed to the surface graphitized structure of Kapton induced by the ultraviolet (UV) activation in ambient. However, no information of the crystalline phase was detected when TiO2 films were deposited on glass or polyethylene (PE) substrates without the special graphit-like structures under the same conditions. Hence, the growth mechanisms as the surface reactions, film formation and continuous growth behaviors of TiO2 film on Kapton substrate were discussed in details.
Highlights
Among high-performance polymers, polyimide (PI) is widely investigated in aerospace and microelectronics fields by virtue of its excellent mechanical properties, irradiation resistance, electrical properties and chemical stability.1–7 At the same time, a fly in the ointment is that PI has high water absorption, relatively low thermal stability and low atomic oxygen erosion resistance as applied in low-earth-orbit spacecraft,8,9 which limit its further application
In order to further expand the applications of polyimide, titanium oxide (TiO2) was deposited on flexible Kapton substrate by successive ionic layer adsorption and reaction (SILAR) method at room temperature
Crystalline TiO2 thin films were successfully prepared by SILAR deposition technique at room temperature without any template agent
Summary
Among high-performance polymers, polyimide (PI) is widely investigated in aerospace and microelectronics fields by virtue of its excellent mechanical properties, irradiation resistance, electrical properties and chemical stability. At the same time, a fly in the ointment is that PI has high water absorption, relatively low thermal stability and low atomic oxygen erosion resistance as applied in low-earth-orbit spacecraft, which limit its further application. A series of methods have been investigated to deposit TiO2 thin films on metal/non-metal substrates, including solgel, hydrothermal, spray pyrolysis, chemical vapor deposition, ion cluster deposition, atomic layer deposition and electrophoretic deposition.. A series of methods have been investigated to deposit TiO2 thin films on metal/non-metal substrates, including solgel, hydrothermal, spray pyrolysis, chemical vapor deposition, ion cluster deposition, atomic layer deposition and electrophoretic deposition.37 These technologies usually need to be performed under high temperature or vacuum, or there could be some difficulties to deposit large-area thin film, which limit the deposition of functional films on the substrates that are not tolerant to high temperature.. This study provides a demonstration that crystalline, large-area and dense functional films deposited on PI at room temperature, which has a good application prospect in the field of aerospace and flexible electronics
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