Adhesion and deformation study of metal/polymer structures by a stretch deformation method

A stretch deformation method has been developed for quantitative study of adhesion and deformation of metal/polymer structures. The adhesion energy is directly measured from the difference in the load versus elongation curves between film/substrate and substrate structures. This method has been applied to study structures formed with Cu, Cr, and Cu/Cr deposited on pyromellitic dianhydride-oxydianiline polyimide. The importance of crack formation in the metal layer for initiating interfacial delamination is demonstrated.