Dielectric relaxation of relaxor ferroelectric P(VDF-TrFE-CFE) terpolymer over broad frequency range

Abstract

Dielectric properties of a relaxor ferroelectric polymer, poly(vinylidene fluoride-trifluoroethylene-chlorofluoroethylene) [P(VDF-TrFE-CFE)] terpolymer, were investigated over a broad range of frequency (from 0.1 kHz to 1 GHz) and a broad range of temperature (-20 degrees C to 76 degrees C). Time-temperature superposition was used to extrapolate the dielectric constant to high frequencies (approximately 1 GHz) from low frequency data (1 MHz). The consistency between the directly measured and the extrapolated data indicate that the time-temperature superposition can be applied at temperature ranging from the glass transition to the broad ferroelectric-paraelectric transition peak of relaxor, indicating that the glass transition is still the dominating relaxation process at room temperature for the ferroelectric relaxor. Compared with the dielectric properties of poly(vinylidene fluoride-trifluoroethylene) [P(VDF-TrFE] copolymer, the terpolymer shows a higher dielectric constant even at 1 GHz, which is considered to originate from the random defects modification converting the long-chain polar-molecular conformation to short-range molecular microstructures and enhancing the molecular motions in both polar and nonpolar nanodomains.