Low-resistance films of polyimides with impregnated copper sulfide

Surface modification of polyimides has been used to obtain better interacti on with an inorganic material. Copper sulfide incorporation onto the surfac e of commercial Kapton (R) polyimide showed that treatment with base was ne cessary for adherence of the copper sulfide to the polymeric matrix. The op timized conditions for composite preparation, obtained by response surface methodology, was pH 1.4 at 80 degreesC for 3.67 h. Using these conditions, we obtained electrical resistance as low as 1.0 ohm for CuS\Kapton (R) comp osites. These optimized conditions were used to prepare other low-resistanc e polyimide composites. The resulting composites were analyzed by photoelec tron spectroscopy. The presence of S(2p) and Cu(2p) peaks demonstrated the incorporation of copper sulfide onto the polyimide surface. Scanning electr on microphotographs and the images from atomic force microscopy showed a ho mogeneous CuS distribution in all composites.