Hybridization of polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane and boron nitride for epoxy composites with improved dielectric, thermal and tensile properties

Low-dielectric polymer composites with high mechanical and thermal properties are very promising for microelectronic devices application. In this paper, chloride salt of octa (aminopropylsilsesquioxane) was prepared successfully and then was grafted onto silane modified boron nitride (BN). The hybrids were used to prepare epoxy-based composites and the dielectric, thermal and tensile properties of the composites were studied. Results revealed that the dielectric constant and dielectric loss values of the epoxy composites were decreased, and the AC resistivity was increased by adding only 0.6 wt% of the hybrids. Moreover, the epoxy composite exhibited improved thermal stability and higher glass transition temperature compared with the pure epoxy. The tensile strength, tensile modulus, and elongation at break of the epoxy composites were increased by 19.7%, 15.5%, and 69.7% compared with that of pure epoxy, respectively, when the hybrids loading was 0.6 wt%. These results indicated that hybridization of polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane and BN was beneficial to take their advantages for preparing high performance low-dielectric epoxy composites.