Flexible and quasi-isotropically thermoconductive polyimide films by guided assembly of boron nitride nanoplate/boron nitride flakes for microelectronic application

Abstract Currently, the application of polyimide (PI) based materials often demands mutual additional properties, such as high thermal conductivity, good flexibility, high thermal stability and low dielectric constant and loss, etc.. Herein, a well-aligned hierarchical “brick and plank” architecture by rational assembly of dopamine modified hexagonal boron nitride flakes and nanoparticles (PDA-BNF@BNNPs) which can effectively improve the thermal conductivity, thermal stability, electrical conductivity, dielectric properties and shape memory performance of pure PI. The alternating stacking of vertically arranged h-BNNPs and horizontally laid h-BNFs yield a quasi-isotropic thermal conductivity of PI films with a high through-plane thermal conductivity of 6.43 W/(mK) and an in-plane thermal conductivity of 11.85 W/(mK) because of the simultaneously vertical and horizontal phonon scattering enabled by the vertically arranged h-BNNPs and horizontally laid h-BNFs. Besides, this special structure also endues PI films high thermal stability of over 560 oC, prominent electrical resistance of over 1.40 × 10-13 Ω•cm, and low dielectric loss of less than 0.02 in the high frequency. Moreover, the PDA-BNF@BNNP/PI films exhibit excellent flexibility and shape memory performance with faster recovery response time reduced over 50 % comparing with that of pure PI film. These outstanding properties combining with the facile and scalable fabrication process make PDA-BNF@BNNP/PI films are very promising in diverse electronic device applications, especially in flexible electronic devices or circuits requiring additionally high thermal conductivity and low dielectric loss.