Dielectric thermally conductive and stable poly(arylene ether nitrile) composites filled with silver nanoparticles decorated hexagonal boron nitride

Abstract Polymer composites with high thermal conductivity, low dielectric constant and low dielectric loss are very promising for electronic packaging. However, it is a big challenge to balance these parameters. Herein, we demonstrated the novel thermally conductive and stable silver nanoparticles decorated hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN/AgNPs)/poly(arylene ether nitrile) composites with low dielectric constant and low dielectric loss. To achieve these targets, h-BN was modified by polydopamine through mussel-inspired method, followed by attaching the silver nanoparticles onto h-BN surface. As-modified h-BN was incorporated into PEN matrix to prepare AgNPs/h-BN@ PEN composite films by solution casting method. Owing to the good dispersion of nanofiller and synergistic effect of AgNPs and h-BN, the resultant AgNPs/h-BN@PEN composite with 30 wt% of AgNPs/h-BN exhibited high thermal conductivity of 0.921 W/(mK). Furthermore, the relatively low dielectric constant (5.6) and dielectric loss (0.11) of PEN composites at 1 kHz were achieved with the same loading content of AgNPs/h-BN. In addition, the thermal stability of PEN composites was greatly increased with the incorporation of AgNPs/h-BN. This work demonstrated that the thermally conductive and stable AgNPs/h-BN@PEN composites with low dielectric constant and low dielectric loss can be used as promising packaging materials in the area of electronic packaging.