Polyimide films have been used in many applications for their excellent mechanical, thermal mechanical, electrical, and chemical properties. In microelectronic industries, for example, polyimide films are utilized as dielectric materials in high density interconnects, passivation layers for semiconductor devices, and substrates for flexible printed circuits. One of the major concerns in these applications is the degradation due to deficient environments in fields. The change of environmental conditions, such as temperature, relative humidity, and containmination, may affect mechanical or electrical performance of the films. Cracking, warpage and delamination have been reported in recent years. Temperature and humidity effects have been investigated in previous studies. In this work, containmination effects on polyimide film cracking and fracture are investigated using an environmental scanning electron microscope (ESEM) with a tensile substage and a low-magnification device.

The ESEM (ElectroScan) enables examining non-conductive materials without conductive coating which maintains the materials in its natural state.