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The effect of the bonding layer type and piezoelectric layer thickness on the magnetoelectric (ME) response of layered poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF)/epoxy/Vitrovac composites is reported. Three distinct epoxy types were tested, commercially known as M-Bond, Devcon, and Stycast. The main differences among them are their different mechanical characteristics, in particular the value of the Young modulus, and the coupling with the polymer and Vitrovac (Fe39Ni39Mo4Si6B12) layers of the laminate. The laminated composites prepared with M-Bond epoxy exhibit the highest ME coupling. Experimental results also show that the ME response increases with increasing PVDF thickness, the highest ME response of 53 V·cm(-1)·Oe(-1) being obtained for a 110 μm thick PVDF/M-Bond epoxy/Vitrovac laminate. The behavior of the ME laminates with increasing temperatures up to 90 °C shows a decrease of more than 80% in the ME response of the laminate, explained by the deteriorated coupling between the different layers. A two-dimensional numerical model of the ME laminate composite based on the finite element method was used to evaluate the experimental results. A comparison between numerical and experimental data allows us to select the appropriate epoxy and to optimize the piezoelectric PVDF layer width to maximize the induced magnetoelectric voltage. The obtained results show the critical role of the bonding layer and piezoelectric layer thickness in the ME performance of laminate composites.

It is successfully demonstrated that nanoparticle's magnetostriction can be accurately determined based on the magnetoelectric effect measured on polymeric composite materials. This represents a novel, simple and versatile method for the determination of particle's magnetostriction at the nano scale and in their dispersed state, which has been, up to now, a difficult and imprecise task.

Electroactive -poly(vinylidene fluoride) membranes were obtained by isothermal crystallization from the solution. Different morphologies and microstructures were obtained by crystallizing at different temperatures. The mechanism and kinetics of solvent evaporation from the polymeric solution were investigated using isothermal thermogravimetric analysis. The kinetic parameters and the activation energy were also 2 calculated. The solvent evaporation is ruled by two steps, related with a metastableunstable -metastable transition in the solution phase diagram. Scanning electron microscopy revealed the porous structure and the variations of the morphology with the variation of the isothermal evaporation temperature. Finally, the infrared spectroscopy measurements confirm that the polymer crystallizes in the electroactive -phase of PVDF.

The effect of annealing temperature and time on the dielectric and piezoelectric response of poly(vinylidene fluoride), PVDF, has been studied. The observed decrease in the value of the dielectric, ´, and piezoelectric, d 33 , constants is related to depoling of the material and not to variations of the degree of crystallinity or the electroactive -phase content. In a general way, the dielectric and piezoelectric responses decrease strongly in the first four hours at a given temperature, in particular for temperatures higher that 80 ºC, reaching stable values for longer annealing times. For most applications, the temperature of 100 ºC will set the limit of suitable performance. Nevertheless, the material still retains stable piezoelectric response of ~ 4 pC/N after reaching temperatures of

A flexible, low-cost energy-harvesting device based on the magnetoelectric (ME) effect was designed using Fe 64 Co 17 Si 7 B 12 as amorphous magnetostrictive ribbons and polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) as the piezoelectric element. A 3 cm-long sandwich-type laminated composite was fabricated by gluing the ribbons to the PVDF with an epoxy resin. A voltage multiplier circuit was designed to produce enough voltage to charge a battery. The power output and power density obtained were 6.4 μW and 1.5 mW cm −3 , respectively, at optimum load resistance and measured at the magnetomechanical resonance of the laminate. The effect of the length of the ME laminate on power output was also studied: the power output exhibited decays proportionally with the length of the ME laminate. Nevertheless, good performance was obtained for a 0.5 cm-long device working at 337 KHz within the low radio frequency (LRF) range.

The dielectric constant, dielectric loss and saturation magnetization of the polymer composite films increase with increasing CoFe2O4 (CFO) content, being 13, 0.13 and 13 emu.g-1 respectively, for x=20. The magnetodielectric (MD) coupling also depend on the CFO content, the change in the dielectric response (MDE(%)) being the highest for the x=20 sample (4.2%). On the other hand, the highest value of the MD coefficient (γ) is higher on the x=3 sample (0.015 emu-2 g 2). Those values are favourably compared with the ones found in the ceramicbased MD materials, being the highest reported for polymer composites. 2 These facts, together with the flexibility and scalable production of the composites, leads to their large application potential in areas such as filters, magnetic field sensors and actuators, among others.