Interphase orientation of polyimide on polycrystalline gold, silver and Si(100)

In this paper we present experimental data that can be used to infer the structural parameters of ultrathin polyimide films as a function of distance from the substrate surface. The polyimide films are prepared by the Langmuir‐Blodgett technique in a layer‐by‐layer fashion, and the orientation of the pyromellitimide unit in the polyimide macromolecules is determined as a function of film thick‐ness by near‐edge x‐ray absorption fine structure (NEXAFS) spectroscopy. To demonstrate that the interfacial bond determines the orientation of the polymer chains in the interphase, results for polyimide on gold, silver and Si(100) are compared