The flexibility and semicrystalline structure of electroactive polymers (EAPs) allows a variety of electroactivity developments. The EAPs have been attractive in many sensor-actuator technology fields, especially for electromechanical response [1] in piezoelectric, electrostrictive, and ferroelectric materials. We characterize the response of these polymers to an external electric field with their 1) electrical properties (permittivity, dielectric relaxation, and electrical breakdown) and 2) mechanical properties (Young's modulus). [2] Both characteristics ultimately affect their electromechanical effectiveness. Customized and optimized EAPs have many applications such as rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, [3] enhancing cardiac regeneration, [4] haptic feedback, [5] and tactile sensors. [6] The development of different methods to achieve an excellent actuation response of EAPs was investigated in the polymer/ composite, [7] blended polymer, [8] and structural design [9,10] to improve intrinsic properties. Xia et al. [11] introduced a novel relaxor ferroelectric polymer, leading to the future improvement of EAPs for a broader range of electronic applications. Terpolymers P(VDF-TrFE-CFE/CTFE) presenting the combination of the ferroelectric-paraelectric phase yield a high dielectric constant (ϵ r % 70) and large electromechanical reaction. However, the main drawback of these polymers has been their high electric field requirement (E > 100 V μm À1 ) [12] to reach sufficient strain. Hence, the introduction of the terpolymer/composite including an effective fabrication processing/assembly has been investigated to enhance electromechanical effectiveness. [12,13] This motivates the investigation of advanced terpolymer composites by simply adding the plasticizer agent into the terpolymer matrix. The plasticizer molecule leads to the increased molecular mobility of the polymer chains, resulting in an increasing dielectric permittivity and a decrease in the Young's modulus of the material. The charge trapping at the boundaries of the heterogeneous morphology tends to induce large Maxwell-Wagner-Sillars (MWS) polarization effects. Such an adaptation technique is able to exploit electromechanical coupling through areas of functional sensor-actuator fabrication technology. [13] During the last 10 years, EAPs have been used in several actuator applications, such as artificial muscles, [14] micropumps, [15,16] and smart steerable guidelines. [17] As a result of their flexible and excellent electromechanical properties, EAPs have become attractive soft-actuator candidates in electronic devices. Furthermore, the free-formable attribute of EAPs presents the possibility to carry out numerous different designs. Considering the manufacturing process of piezoelectric and ferroelectric materials for
The poly(vinylidene fluoride-co-hexafluoropropylene), PVDF-HFP composite films with addition graphene-nanoplatelets (GPN) was prepared by using the tape casting solution method. The obtained composite films were stretched with help from thermal stretching machine at 80 °C with 5 mm/min rate. Dielectric constant and hysteresis loop (PE-loop) between the stretching and non-stretching films at different fillers percentage were compared in this study. Dielectric constant was investigated by the LCR meter. The PE-loop was measured by the ferroelectric polarization loop test system. The experimental results showed that the dielectric constant of all samples increases with increasing fillers content, regardless of frequency. The dielectric constant of stretching composite films was higher than non-stretching composite films. In addition, the PE-loop shapes of the stretching films have slimmer than the non-stretching films regardless of filler content. However, the PE-loop produced the shape to be bigger loop with increasing filler content. The energy efficiency of obtained PVDF-HFP composite films will be discussed on their dielectric constant, dielectric loss, AC conductivity, and polarization performances for electric–capacitor materials applications.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.