Direct stamping and capillary flow patterning of solution processable piezoelectric polyvinylidene fluoride films

Abstract

It is well known that the potential applications of polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) mainly come from the piezoelectricity and ferroelectricity of its polar β phase. Thus, we have investigated the effect of different preparation conditions namely evaporation temperature, type of solvent and additive to enhance the β crystal structures of PVDF thin film. Subsequently, facile and direct soft lithography technique; direct stamping and capillary flow were employed to demonstrate good pattern transfer of PVDF thin films. The piezoelectricity of the microstructure was characterized using piezoresponse force microscopy (PFM) where fairly good piezoresponse was obtained without further processing procedures i.e., annealing or applied pressure/electric field. As such, our solution processable and direct patterning of PVDF techniques offer facile and promising route to produce arrays of isolated microstructures with improved piezoelectric functionality.