Theory of modified thermally stimulated current and direct determination of trap level distribution

In order to investigate the trap level distribution in polymer films, a new method is proposed based on modified thermally stimulated current (TSC) theory and numerical calculation of the TSC measurement. In this method, a new function is defined to weight the contribution of every trap level to the external current. The demarcation energy is used to study the trap emptying process. The modified TSC theory shows that only the electrons with trap levels very close to the demarcation energy can significantly contribute to the external circuit at any instant temperature. Based on this method, the trap level distribution of the DuPont original polyimide film 100HN and nanocomposite polyimide film 100CR are investigated as an application example. The effectiveness of the method is confirmed by the experiments. The experimental results show that the trap level density in the 100CR PI films is about six times larger than that in the 100HN PI films through the investigated trap level ranges 06–1.3 eV. The increased traps in 100CR should be introduced by nanofillers, probably come from the interfaces formed between nanofillers and the polymer matrix.