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Solvent transport in multilayer thin film structures can induce damaging stresses. It is important to understand these quantitatively for the design of processing methods for microelectronics manufacture. As a model for such systems, this article focuses on the connection between solvent transport in a thin, supported film and the induced bending curvature of the film/substrate combination. We develop a simple mechanical model to calculate the bending curvature based on the transport-induced stresses. A phenomenological moving boundary description of non-Fickian solvent transport often found in glassy polymers has been used. The evaluation of dimensionless bending curvature for a number of generic cases is presented. As an application of the model, experimental data for a polymide (PI)/quartz-n-methyl-2-pyrrolidinone (NMP) system involving significant swelling (15–20%) of the PI film is analyzed. The analysis shows that the measured bending during the transport of NMP in the PI film compares well with that predicted based on an “intermediate,” non-Fickian diffusion mechanism of NMP, consistent with the finding obtained from a laser interferometric study. Estimation of the swelling-induced stress shows that it is large and as significant as that due to thermal “curing.”

A thermomechanical analyzer (TMA) in the parallel-plate configuration was employed to study the viscosity behavior of an unfilled, FR-4 type epoxy resin by monitoring its thickness change with time under a constant compressive force at various temperatures. With a dual-Arrhenius reheology model, we were able to predict viscosities under nonisothermal conditions of high heating rate from more easily obtained isothermal viscosity data. Due to its simplicity and speed, this technique is well suited for investigating resin viscosity behavior during composite lamination in a manufacturing environment.

A simple interferometric technique is described for monitoring thickness changes in solution-cast polymer films as they are dried and cured. This paper follows a freshly spun solution of polyamic acid in NMP as it is converted into a cured polyimide film of 6 μm in thickness. The technique is shown to be nearly quantitative despite the effects of thermal expansion and cure-related refractive index changes.

A bending-beam technique has been employed to study the effects of film thickness (7–55 μm) and rate of cooling during film preparation (∼ 6°C/h to a dry ice quench) on sorption characteristics of water by poly(methyl methacrylate) films coated on thin fused quartz beams (˜ 84 μm thick). In each experiment, the curvature of a polymer coated beam exposed to liquid water was monitored as a function of time by a low power laser pointer. With the use of a transport model which considers the sorption process as the linear superposition of contributions from Fickian diffusion and a first-order polymer molecular relaxation process, the beam curvature data were analyzed to determine the governing transport kinetics and associated transport parameters such as water diffusion coefficient and relaxation rate constant. From curvature analysis for thin films (7–13 μm in thickness), it was found that water diffusion proceeds at early times in a Fickian-like manner with a diffusion constant of 2–4 × 10−9 cm2/s. At later times, significant relaxation contributions lead to non-Fickian diffusion behavior, an effect that is more pronounced as the film thickness or sample cooling rate decreases. In addition, sorption of water was found to reduce the film stress (initially tensile at ˜ 108 dyn/cm2) at a rate that increases with sample cooling rate. The high initial film stress not present in free-standing films may account for the relatively higher diffusion coefficient (∼ 2 × 10−8 cm2/s) found here for very thick (55 μm) PMMA coatings. Because the bending-beam technique uses coated samples, it is especially well suited for studying penetrant transport into polymer coatings.