Experimental and Theoretical Investigations of Cured and Uncured Disiloxane Bisbenzocyclobutene Thin Films

The main challenge in the large-scale commercial applications of benzocyclobutene (BCB) dielectrics is to perform their curing rapidly and efficiently at low temperatures, and in the same time, to obtain large area, high quality, pinhole free dielectric thin films. For that purpose, we investigated numerous uncured and cured BCB films, approximately 2 mu m thick, spin-coated on glass/ITO surface, using optical and AFM microscopy, infrared (IR) and Raman spectroscopy, and complete these results with appropriate Linear Combination of Atomic Orbitals (LCAO) calculations. That way we relate microscopic characteristics of the involved molecules, and macroscopic properties of the cured and uncured polymers, which is important for their practical applications.