Polarization switching at the nanoscale in ferroelectric copolymer thin films Appl. Phys. Lett. 99, 142904 (2011) Tunable temperature dependence of electrocaloric effect in ferroelectric relaxor poly(vinylidene fluoridetrifluoroethylene-chlorofluoroethylene terpolymer Appl. Phys. Lett. 99, 052907 (2011) Beneficial and detrimental fatigue effects of dielectric barrier discharges on the piezoelectricity of polypropylene ferroelectrets J. Appl. Phys. 110, 024108 (2011) Energy harvesting by nonlinear capacitance variation for a relaxor ferroelectric poly(vinylidene fluoridetrifluoroethylene-chlorofluoroethylene) terpolymer Appl. Phys. Lett. 98, 222901 (2011) Photocrosslinking of ferroelectric polymers and its application in three-dimensional memory arrays Appl. Phys. Lett. 98, 183302 (2011) Additional information on J. Appl. Phys. We describe the concept, the fabrication, and the most relevant properties of a piezoelectric-polymer system: Two fluoroethylenepropylene ͑FEP͒ films with good electret properties are laminated around a specifically designed and prepared polytetrafluoroethylene ͑PTFE͒ template at 300°C. After removing the PTFE template, a two-layer FEP film with open tubular channels is obtained. For electric charging, the two-layer FEP system is subjected to a high electric field. The resulting dielectric barrier discharges inside the tubular channels yield a ferroelectret with high piezoelectricity. d 33 coefficients of up to 160 pC/N have already been achieved on the ferroelectret films. After charging at suitable elevated temperatures, the piezoelectricity is stable at temperatures of at least 130°C. Advantages of the transducer films include ease of fabrication at laboratory or industrial scales, a wide range of possible geometrical and processing parameters, straightforward control of the uniformity of the polymer system, flexibility, and versatility of the soft ferroelectrets, and a large potential for device applications e.g., in the areas of biomedicine, communications, production engineering, sensor systems, environmental monitoring, etc.

The photoluminescence observed in ABO3 type perovskite in their highly structural disordered state can be explained by a model in which is assumed a distribution of electronic states localized within the energy band gap coupled to lattice local vibrational states. The model fits very well the experimental results and indicates that photoluminescence in the visible region can be considered as a general behavior of disordered solids.

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Ferro- and piezo-electrets are non-polar polymer foams or film systems with internally charged cavities. Since their invention more than two decades ago, ferroelectrets have become a welcome addition to the range of piezo-, pyro-, and ferro-electric materials available for device applications. A polarization-versus-electric-field hysteresis is an essential feature of a ferroelectric material and may also be used for determining some of its main properties. Here, a modified Sawyer-Tower circuit and a combination of unipolar and bipolar voltage waveforms are employed to record hysteresis curves on cellular-foam polypropylene ferroelectret films and on tubular-channel fluoroethylenepropylene copolymer ferroelectret film systems. Internal dielectric barrier discharges (DBDs) are required for depositing the internal charges in ferroelectrets. The true amount of charge transferred during the internal DBDs is obtained from voltage measurements on a standard capacitor connected in series with the sample, but with a much larger capacitance than the sample. Another standard capacitor with a much smaller capacitance—which is, however, still considerably larger than the sample capacitance—is also connected in series as a high-voltage divider protecting the electrometer against destructive breakdown. It is shown how the DBDs inside the polymer cavities lead to phenomenological hysteresis curves that cannot be distinguished from the hysteresis loops found on other ferroic materials. The physical mechanisms behind the hysteresis behavior are described and discussed.

Cellular and porous polymers with internal bipolar space charge can exhibit large piezoelectric thickness coefficients and have therefore led to significant advances in the understanding and the application of piezoelectricity in polymer electrets. As possible alternatives to these cellular ferroelectrets, other potentially useful configurations of space-charge electrets, such as bi-layer or multi-layer stacks of at least one "soft" porous and one "hard" non-porous electret film have been suggested and investigated. Extending the concept of cellular or porous polymer electrets with microscopic voids, we propose and describe novel piezoelectret structures with regular arrays of millimeter-sized bubbles that are formed between fluoro-ethylene-propylene (Teflon®-FEP) films via a vacuum-assisted thermal process. After internal charging by means of high impulse voltages, the bubble structures exhibit rather large piezoelectric activities in their thickness direction, with phenomenological quasi-static d 33 coefficients of up to 500 pC/N (or pm/V) which quite strongly decrease with the amplitude of the applied force. The electromechanical behavior of the new piezoelectrets has been modeled in analogy to the operation of electret microphones. , he is a visiting professor at the Institute of Physics of the University of São Paulo in São Carlos, Brazil. The main research areas of Prof. Gerhard-Multhaupt are polymer electrets and ferroelectrets, in particular the mechanisms of space-charge storage and dipole polarization in dielectric polymers and polymer composites, their ferro-, pyro-and piezoelectrical properties, and their applications in sensors and actuators, as well as the nonlinear optical properties of polymers, and more recently also the physics of musical instruments. From 1974From until 1979 he was a fellow of the Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes. In 1988, he was awarded an ITG-Preis by the Informationstechnische Gesellschaft im VDE. In 1989, he received a Silver medal from the Stiftung Werner-von-Siemens-Ring. In 2001, he was awarded the first Technologietransfer-Preis by the Technologie-Stiftung Brandenburg and the Prof.-Adalbert-Seifriz-Preis by the Verein Technologie-Transfer Handwerk for his technological collaborations with small industrial companies. Reimund Gerhard-Multhaupt is a member of the American, European and German physical societies. Since 2002, he serves as Digest Editor of the IEEE Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation Society.

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