Development of a conductive photoresist with a mixture of SU-8 and HCl doped polyaniline

A novel electrically conductive photoresist has been formulated to fabricate microcomponents. The developed conductive photoresist is based upon SU-8 photopolymer, an insulating negative-tone epoxy, in which protonically doped polyaniline (PANI) nanoparticles have been dispersed to enhance the electrical properties. The characteristics of this new conductive photoresist have been studied via electrical measurements. The process for preparing the conductive films from the combination of EB (Emeraldine base) PANI, SU-8 and NMP (N-methyl-2-pyrrolidinone) will be presented. Different weight percentages (wt%) of SU-8 in the above combination have been prepared and spin coated to form thin-films which have been protonated with HCl. The conductivities of the thin- films were measured using a four point probe. The highest conductivity achieved was approximately 1.6 S/cm for the mixture of 10 wt% of SU-8 25 with EB-PANI mixed with NMP. The morphology of the thin-films was studied using a scanning electron microscopy (SEM).