Preface

Polyimide is one of the most efficient polymeric materials in many industries due to its excellent thermal, electrical, mechanical, and chemical properties, as well as its easy processability. In particular, in the electronic and electrical engineering industries, polyimide has widely been used for decades thanks to its very good dielectric and insulating properties at the high electric field and up to temperatures of around 200°C in long-term service, and sometimes at even higher temperatures for short-term service.

Since polyimide's discovery in the mid-1950s, it has become a key material for designing reliable electrical devices and systems for use in applications ranging from low to high voltage. Polyimide is also essential for the development of new types of electronic devices where further considerations such as high power density, integration, higher temperature, thermal conduction management, energy storage, reliability or flexibility are required in order to sustain the growing electrical energy consumption needs of the global society.

Consequently, polyimide materials have faced and will face new and exciting fundamental, technological and environmental challenges, including:


With all these challenges addressed, polyimide should be well placed for technological breakthroughs in the field of electronic and electrical engineering applications in the coming decades. In addition, many challenges regarding the understanding of the aging mechanisms under single or multiple constraints and the prediction of accurate lifetimes using both powerful physical modeling and design of experiments is a ubiquitous question in most electronic industries.

This book reviews the main applications of polyimide in the field of electronic and high-voltage engineering. The volume is organized as follows:
