A novel approach to prepare graphene oxide/soluble polyimide composite films with a low dielectric constant and high mechanical properties

This paper proposes an effective and simple approach to fabricate high-performance graphene oxide (GO)/soluble polyimide (SPI) composite films through a novel and effective process. In this method, GO is dispersed in a dissolved SPI (R-SPI) polymeric matrix with curing state, preventing the reduction of crosslinking reactions of the polymeric matrix, and resulting in substantial improvements in the mechanical and dielectric properties of the composite. The GO/R-SPI composite film contains only 1.0 wt% GO; it possesses high tensile strength (up to 288.6 MPa) and Young's modulus (7.58 GPa), which represent an increase of 260% in tensile strength and 402% in Young's modulus, compared with the neat SPI film (80.3 MPa and 1.51 GPa, respectively). The dielectric constant (D-k) decreases with an increase in the GO content; the D-k of the GO/R-SPI composite film can be as low as 2.1 (compared with 2.8 for the neat SPI film). This novel fabricating method provides a path for developing high-performance GO/R-SPI composite materials as next-generation low-k dielectric materials.