Bioinspired construction of size adjustable hollow polydopamine microspheres for ultra-low dielectric polyimide composites

Polydopamine (PDA) has been extensively investigated due to its excellent adhesion ability and versatile chemical potential for secondary reactions. However, the potential application of hollow polydopamine microspheres (H-PDA) in the field of low-dielectric electronic packaging remains an unexplored area. Here, H-PDA microspheres with adjustable size were synthesized by a template-assisted approach, and the influence of size and content of H-PDA on the comprehensive performance of PI/H-PDA composites was explored in detail. The morphology observation revealed that the presence of H-PDA could be homogeneously dispersed in the PI matrix, and the PI/H-PDA composite containing 2 wt% H-PDA-800 achieved the lowest dielectric constant of 1.96 with a dielectric loss of 0.0123 at 1 MHz. It was attributed to the synergistic effects of nano-sized air bubbles from H-PDA and the dielectric confinement effect. Meanwhile, PI/H-PDA composites maintained high thermal stability (T₅ > 517 °C). In addition, the incorporation of H-PDA had a strengthening and toughening effect on PI composites, which can be explained by the sliding theory of macromolecular chains. This work offers a feasible strategy to obtain ultra-low dielectric constant of porous PI composites while maintaining good mechanical properties and thermal stability. © 2023 Elsevier B.V.