Fundamental Understanding of Nanofiller Dispersion in Polymer Systems for Electronics Applications

该奖项的研究目标是研究纳米分散在改性填料系统和复合材料中的应用，因为它们适用于电子和光子封装系统。各种新技术将被用于在纳米和微观尺度上整合不同的材料，并研究其流变效应。这些方法包括；(1)将研究填料材料与基体组分（如硬化剂添加剂）之间的相互作用，从而清楚地了解填料-填料吸引相互作用的抑制与填料-聚合物相互作用的增强之间的关系。(2)研究原位纳米填料与其他复合组分（包括微米级填料和封盖剂/硬化剂）之间的相互作用。(3)多种多功能材料将被用作自组装单层（SAMs），以消除有吸引力的填料-填料相互作用，促进填料-聚合物相互作用。(4)最终复合材料的流变特性将直接关系到通过上述方法抑制吸引填料-填料相互作用。(5)分子动力学建模将在分子尺度上更好地理解填料-填料和纳米填料-聚合物的相互作用，从而获得均匀和可重复的纳米分散复合材料样品。如果成功，这项研究的好处将包括从建模和最终材料的实际生产和表征中获得的数据之间的明确关系，从而使工业界和学术界的科学家和工程师能够克服在使用含有纳米填料的复合材料时遇到的各种问题。它还将使制造高效导电粘合剂和高介电常数，低损耗介电复合材料以及适用于各种电子封装系统的许多复合材料成为可能。这项研究不仅在电子封装领域有用，而且在使用纳米填充材料的任何领域都有用。最近的公共利益和政府的倡议创造了许多乌托邦和对纳米技术研究成果的许多高期望。通过这项工作获得的对纳米分散的基本理解对于使这些期望成为现实至关重要。

The research objective of this award is to study nanodispersion in modified filler systems and composite materials, as they apply to electronic and photonic packaging systems. A variety of novel techniques will be used to integrate dissimilar materials on the nano and microscale and study the rheological effects. The approaches include; (1) Interactions between filler materials and matrix components such as hardener additives will be studied, providing a clear understanding of the relationship between suppression of filler-filler attractive interactions and enhancement of filler-polymer interactions. (2) Investigations will be conducted regarding the interactions between in-situ nanofillers and other composite components including micron-sized fillers and capping agents/hardeners. (3) A variety of multifunctional materials will be employed as self-assembly monolayers (SAMs) to eliminate attractive filler-filler interactions and promote filler-polymer interactions. (4) The rheological properties of the final composite materials will be directly related to suppression of attractive filler-filler interactions through the above approaches. (5) Molecular dynamics modeling will be conducted to better understand filler-filler and nanofiller-polymer interactions on a molecular scale so that nanodispersed composites may be obtained as homogeneous and reproducible samples.If successful, the benefits of this research will include a clear relationship between the data obtained from the modeling and actual production and characterization of final materials, resulting in enabling scientists and engineers from both industry and academia to overcome a variety of problems encountered where composite materials are employed which contain nanofillers. It will also enable the fabrication of highly efficient electrically conductive adhesives and high dielectric constant, low loss dielectric composites as well as a number of composite materials applicable to a variety of electronic packaging systems. This research will not only be useful in the areas of electronic packaging, but as well in any area where nanofiller materials are used. The recent public interests and government initiatives have created many utopias and many high expectations on the results obtained from nanotechnology research. The fundamental understanding of nanodispersion obtained through this work will be essential to make some of these expectations a reality.