Evaporated copper on surface modified polyaniline films

In order to improve the adhesion between the emeraldine base (EB) film of p olyaniline (PANI) and evaporated copper metal, surface modification of EB f ilms via UV-induced graft copolymerization with glycidyl methacrylate (GMA) was carried out. The effects of GMA monomer concentration and UV graft cop olymerization time on the T-peel adhesion strength of the resulting Cu/EB l aminates 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 a dhesion strength between the surface-modified EB film and evaporated copper was increased by almost 10-folds under the optimum surface modification co nditions. The chemical compositions of the GMA-g-EB surfaces were studied b y 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 evaporat ed copper atoms to form a charge-transfer complex, which accounted for the enhanced adhesion of evaporated copper to the GMA-g-EB films. (C) 2001 Else vier Science B.V. All rights reserved.