Tiziana Poggio

PTFE nanoemulsions as ultralow-k dielectric materials

Modern integrated circuits require insulating materials with a dielectric constant as low as possible in order to obtain device speed improvements through lower RC delay. We have investigated the electrical and structural properties of PTFE thin films obtained from Algoflon®-PTFE nanoemulsions, via spin coating deposition, followed by sintering. Films as thin as 160 nm with dielectric strength better than 4 MV/cm have been obtained.

Advances in fluoropolymer dispersions

SummaryMultimodal high-performance fluoropolymer dispersions have been developed thanks to Solvay Solexis’ proprietary technology which permits bimodal particle-size distributions to be obtained, not only by blending standard fluoropolymer dispersions (diameter 250nm) with nano-latexes (diameter from 10 to 60nm), but also directly from polymerisation, exploiting a competitive homogeneous/coagulative and droplet nucleation mechanism. It has been found that poly(tetra-fluoroethylene) (PTFE) bimodal dispersions have optimal film-forming and particle-packing behaviour at a size ratio of about 0.15, corresponding with the best fit to the random close-packing model, while no significant improvements are observed when the aforesaid size ratio is 0.3.