ULTRAVIOLET-LASER-INDUCED PERMANENT ELECTRICAL-CONDUCTIVITY IN POLYIMIDE

When polyimide (Kapton) is irradiated by a krypton fluoride (KrF) laser, an increase of the electrical conductivity of up to 16 orders of magnitude is observed. In the high conduction regime, the resistivity is about 0.1 OMEGA cm, the current voltage characteristic is ohmic and the contacts of gold and silver with the irradiated conducting polymer are also ohmic. The conduction mechanism is phonon-assisted variable range hopping, evident from the observed temperature and electric field dependence of the resistivity at low conductivities. The laser-induced conductivity depends on the ambient atmosphere during irradiation. Transmission spectroscopy in the visible region and infrared Fourier transform spectroscopy have been used to characterize the material. A thermal mechanism is proposed for the formation of conducting polyimide, by excimer-laser irradiation.