Vapor phase infiltration (VPI) is a post-polymerization modification technique that imbues inorganic materials into polymers to create organic-inorganic hybrid materials with new properties distinct from the parent polymer. While several VPI precursor-polymer chemistries have been explored, a lack of chemical intuition remains for fully understanding the thermodynamics and kinetics that govern the VPI process. This study seeks to continue to build this knowledge by examining the VPI process kinetics for TiO₂ infiltration into PMMA via the use of TiCl₄ and H₂O precursors. In this research, polymethylmethacrylate / TiO₂ hybrid materials are prepared using VPI. The depth of infiltration of the TiO₂species into ~200 nm PMMA thin films is studied using x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and spectroscopic ellipsometry. The kinetics for TiCl4 infiltration increases with both VPI process temperature and TiCl₄ exposure time. However, the rates of infiltration are considerably slower than those observed in the more commonly studied trimethylaluminum (TMA) / PMMA system. Even at 150 °C, process times of at least 12 hours are required to fully infiltrate a 200 nm PMMA film whereas using TMA similar films are fully infiltrated within 1 hour at the same process temperature. Films that we believe to be fully infiltrated at 150 °C and 24 hours of TiCl₄ exposure have a 6 at% Ti in the innermost bulk, as determined by XPS. Interestingly, unlike AlO_x-PMMA hybrids, these TiO_x – PMMA hybrids exhibit significant changes in their optical properties. Increased titanium loading leads to a 4% increase in refractive index and increased UV absorbance in the UV range of 270-350nm. Furthermore, films infiltrated at 150 °C and 24 hours of TiCl₄ exposure had a 50 % and 70 % reduction in coefficients of thermal expansion (CTE) below and above T_g respectively. Reduced CTE trends with increased titanium loading. We will discuss possible opportunities to use these new properties for various applications.

This project is supported by the Laboratory Directed Research and Development program at Sandia National Laboratories, a multimission laboratory managed and operated by National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International Inc. for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-NA0003525.