Polyethylene-ceramic composites for electronic packaging applications

Summary form only given. The recent rapid progress in microwave communication accelerates the search of new materials to meet the present challenging performance requirements. In order to maintain high signal conveying efficiency, the dielectric substrate should have low relative permittivity and low dielectric loss. Several low loss low permittivity ceramics such as silicates and aluminates have been developed. However, they have high processing temperature and are brittle. Polymers are flexible having low processing temperature and exhibit excellent microwave dielectric properties. However, they have low thermal conductivity and high coefficient of thermal expansion. The composite strategy of combining the advantages of both polymer and ceramic phase can offer excellent property. Polymer ceramic composite offers excellent material characteristics such as flexibility, low processing temperature, and good microwave dielectric and thermal properties. In the present study we have taken polyethylene as the polymer because it has low processing dielectric properties. The relative permittivity of the individual phases and volume fraction of the filler are the most important factors determining the effective dielectric properties of the composites. In this paper we report the effect of ceramic fillers having relative permittivity in the range 10 to 110 (Sm₂Si₂O₇, CeO₂, Ca[(Li_1/3Nb_2/3)_0.8Ti_0.2]O_3-delta, Sr₂Ce₂Ti₅O₁₅) in polyethylene. The effect of frequency and temperature and volume fraction of fillers in polyethylene on the dielectric properties of the composites are studied. The ceramic reinforced polyethylene composites are prepared by melt mixing and hot pressing techniques. The microstructure of the composite is studied using a scanning electron microscope. The dielectric properties at high frequency (8 GHz) are analyzed using- - the cavity perturbation method. The relative permittivity and dielectric loss increased with increase in the ceramic loading for all the ceramic polymer composites. The experimentally observed results are compared with theoretical models.