Applied Surface Science, Vol.173, No.3-4, 242-251, 2001
Evaporated copper on surface modified polyaniline films
In order to improve the adhesion between the emeraldine base (EB) film of polyaniline (PANI) and evaporated copper metal, surface modification of EB films via UV-induced graft copolymerization with glycidyl methacrylate (GMA) was carried out. The effects of GMA monomer concentration and UV graft copolymerization time on the T-peel adhesion strength of the resulting Cu/EB laminates were studied. It was found that the adhesion strength between the GMA graft-copolymerized EB (GMA-g-EB) film and evaporated copper increased monotonically with the graft concentration of the GMA polymer. The T-peel adhesion strength between the surface-modified EB film and evaporated copper was increased by almost 10-folds under the optimum surface modification conditions. The chemical compositions of the GMA-g-EB surfaces were studied by X-Ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The interaction between the GMA-g-EB surface and the deposited copper atoms was investigated in situ by XPS. The epoxide groups of the grafted GMA polymer interacted with the evaporated copper atoms to form a charge-transfer complex, which accounted for the enhanced adhesion of evaporated copper to the GMA-g-EB films.