Bilayered polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) composite for dielectric elastomer applications

Abstract

Dielectric elastomers (DE) are used in various applications, such as actuator, generator and sensor. Despite its many advantages, DE also has limitation in its performance which is low relative permittivity. Many approaches that have been reported to increase the relative permittivity of DEs such as incorporated with permittivity enhancing fillers to PDMS films, however, it leads a drawback to other parameters (high Young’s modulus and low breakdown strength). In this study, PDMS films were incorporated with high permittivity fillers which are hard filler (Titanium dioxide) and soft fillers (silicone oil and glycerol) and the synergistic effect of soft and hard filler through bilayer hybridization technique was investigated. The bilayered technique showed that there was an increase of relative permittivity of PDMS films without affecting the other parameters severely; the breakdown strength and Young’s modulus of the PDMS films were kept on the acceptable level therefore, the figure of merit (FOM) of the bilayered PDMS films are higher than that in single layered.