Effect of Ag nanoparticle concentration on the electrical and ferroelectric properties of Ag/P(VDF-TrFE) composite films.
We investigated the effect of the Ag nanoparticles on the ferroelectric and piezoelectric properties of Ag/poly(vinylidenefluoride-trifluoroethylene) (P(VDF-TrFE)) composite films. We found that the remanent polarization and direct piezoelectric coefficient increased up to 12.14 μC/cm(2) and 20.23 pC/N when the Ag concentration increased up to 0.005 volume percent (v%) and decreased down to 9.38 μC/cm(2) and 13.45 pC/N when it increased up to 0.01 v%. Further increase in Ag concentration resulted in precipitation of Ag phase and significant leakage current that hindered any meaningful measurement of the ferroelectric and piezoelectric properties. 46% increase of the remanent polarization value and 27% increase of the direct piezoelectric coefficient were observed in the film with the 0.005 v% of the Ag nanoparticles added without significant changes to the crystalline structure confirmed by both X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) experiments. These enhancements of both the ferroelectric and piezoelectric properties are attributed to the increase in the effective electric field induced by the reduction in the effective volume of P(VDF-TrFE) that results in more aligned dipoles.
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon, Korea.|Materials Science, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA.
Haemin
H
Paik
Materials Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, IL 60439, USA.
Yoon-Young
YY
Choi
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon, Korea.|Materials Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, IL 60439, USA.
Seungbum
S
Hong
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon, Korea.
Kwangsoo
K
No