Flexible and low-k polymer featuring hard-soft-hybrid strategy

One of the main challenges for dielectric materials for advanced microelectronics is their high dielectric value and brittleness. In this study, we adopted a hard-soft-hybrid strategy and successfully introduced a hard, soft segment and covalent crosslinked structural unit into a hybridized skeleton via copolymerization of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), benzocyclobutene (BCB) and double-decker-shaped polyhedral silsesquioxanes (DDSQ) by a platinum-catalyzed hydrosilylation reaction, thus producing a random copolymer (PDBD) with a hybridized skeleton in the main chain. PDBD exhibited high molecular weight and thermal curing action without any catalyst. More importantly, the cured copolymer displayed high flexibility, high thermal stability and low dielectric constant, evidencing its potential applications in high-performance dielectric materials.