Surface Modification of Aluminum Nitride Fillers Using Plasma in Solution and Their Application in Composite Materials

There is a growing demand for materials with high thermal conductivity, flexibility, and electrical insulation, for applications in flexible electronic devices. However, there is generally a trade-off relationship between thermal conductivity and mechanical properties, and few conventional materials satisfy all of the requirements.

To develop materials with the aforementioned properties, composites comprising flexible and tough polyrotaxane and highly thermally conductive aluminum nitride (AlN) particles (diameter: 0.9 μm) were fabricated in this study, similar to our previous studies using different fillers [1]; the AlN particles are isotropic and exhibit high thermal conductivity in all directions, they enable the creation of composites with enhanced overall thermal conductivity and designed anisotropic behavior. We applied surface modification to AlN via plasma processing in solution to enhance dispersion of the AlN fillers during composite processing, resulting in better mechanical properties of the composite.

By applying plasma surface modification, we successfully modified the surface of AlN. It seems that Al-N bonds were not significantly damaged, as indicated by identical spectra of FTIR. Composites containing these plasma-treated AlN fillers exhibited both improved dispersion and enhanced flexibility compared to composites with non-treated AlN. Detailed results will be presented at an upcoming conference.



1. Goto, T. et al. Appl. Phys. Lett. 112, 101901 (2018).