High Dielectric Performance of Polymer Composite Films Induced by a Percolating Interparticle Barrier Layer

TLDR: In this paper, the authors proposed a method to increase the dielectric constant of polymer-based capacitors by using conductive fillers (e.g., metal particles).

Abstract: The mechanical flexibility and tunable properties of polymer-based materials make them attractive ones for a lot of applications. Exploring polymer-based dielectrics, such as ones used for capacitors and charge-storage applications, with high dielectric constant (high-j) has recently aroused considerable interest. Especially, motivated by higher function and further miniaturization of electronics, embedding (or integrating) polymer-based capacitors into the inner layers of organic printed circuit boards (PCBs) allows packaging substrate miniaturization and better electrical performance, which is a key for organic-based system-on-package technologies. But as capacitors, the relative dielectric constant j of general polymers (being good insulators) is too low (e.g., j< 5).Thus, a key issue is to substantially raise the dielectric constant of the polymers while retaining low dielectric loss. A few strategies have been developed to raise the j of polymer-based materials. A common approach is to add high-j ceramic fillers (e.g., BaTiO3) into a polymer. High loading of the ceramic fillers in the polymer composite, usually over 50 vol %, can increase j by about ten times relative to the polymer matrix, but dramatically decreases the adhesion of the composite (and increases its porosity) thus deteriorating the adaptability between the composite and the organic circuit boards. Another strategy is to fabricate percolative composite capacitors by using conductive fillers (e.g., metal particles). As the volume fraction f of the fillers increases to the vicinity of the percolation threshold fc, j of the composites can be dramatically enhanced as described by the well-known power law