Novel Method of Carbon Precursor Masking to Generate Controlled Perforations in a Carbon Film

A patterned carbon film was produced from Linear Low-Density Polyethylene (LLDPE) by the implementation of a novel method named Chemical Masking Perforation (CMP). The following paper describes this procedure, starting with the sulfonation of the precursor polymer LLDPE with Chlorosulphonic acid to stabilize the material, followed by Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) evaluation to compare the atomic bonds from the stabilized film as well as from the masked sections of the film. To finalize, the cross-linked film was carbonized in an oven at 950 °C. The outcome of this process was a carbon film with a thickness similar to a carbon fiber diameter of 8 µm with controllable size and distribution.