Abstract
The equi-biaxial tension, developed during the drying process of the adhered polyimide films on a rigid substrate, was determined by measuring the out-of-plane birefringence of the dried films. Using a polarized light microscope and a tilting sample stage, the out-of-plane birefringence of a linear polyimide film that was dried during a given thermal process was determined to be (7.5 ± 0.5) × 10 -3 . The equi-biaxial tension was calculated, using the stress-optical law, to be around 60 MPa, in agreement with that determined by the commonly used bending beam method. Owing to the additional spatial resolution spatial resolution of stress distribution and the higher accuracy for measuring soft polymer coatings, the birefringence method described here is considered to be a useful alternative to the bending beam technique which measures only the macroscopically averaged stress and its accuracy is generally limited by the huge modulus ratio between the rigid substrate and the polymer. © 1994.