Pore size scaling for enhanced fracture resistance of nanoporous polymer thin films

Poly(arylene) ether (PAE) polymer films containing controlled nanometer-sized pores are shown to exhibit increasing fracture resistance with porosity. Such surprising behavior is in stark contrast to widely reported behavior for the fracture toughness of porous solids, which decreases markedly with porosity. A ductile nano-void growth and coalescence fracture mechanics-based model is presented to rationalize the increase in fracture resistance of the voided polymer film. The model is shown to explain the behavior in terms of a specific scaling of the size of the pores with pore volume fraction. It is demonstrated that the pore size must increase with close to a linear dependence on the volume fraction in order to increase rather than decrease the fracture energy. Independent characterization of the pore size as a function of volume fraction is shown to confirm predictions made by the model. Implications for the optimum void size and volume fraction are considered for superior fracture resistance of the nanoporous films.