Abstract
Poly(vinylidene fluoride)-based ferroelectric polymers have large and tunable dielectric permittivity (εr), but rather high Young’s modulus (Y), which limits its electromechanical response when used as actuators. In this work, a silicone oligomer involving amino groups is employed to crosslink a non-crystallized poly(vinylidene fluoride-chlorotrifluoroethylene) matrix bearing double bonds (P(VDF-CTFE-DB)) via addition reaction. Thanks to the flexible silicone molecules, the modulus of the hybrids is reduced over 30% when compared with the pristine matrix. Most interestingly, the εr of the hybrids is improved to nearly 100% higher than that of the matrix when the silicone content reaches 30 wt %. This may be due to the dilution effect of silicone molecules, which favors macromolecular chain rearrangement and dipole orientation of the hybrids under an applied electric field. As a result, electric-field activated displacements of the above hybrid increases to 0.73 mm from 0.48 mm of the matrix under 60 MV/m. The maximum electric field-induced thickness strain increases from 1% of the matrix to nearly 3% of the crosslinked hybrid. This work may provide a facile strategy to fabricate PVDF-based hybrids with enhanced electromechanical performance under low activating voltage.
Highlights
As an important branch of electro-active polymers (EAPs), dielectric elastomer (DE) has the merits of high electromechanical efficiency, large deformation, and fast response times, which has potential application in the fields of artificially intelligent and wearable devices, such as actuators, nano-generators, and biosensors [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8]
For the film-shaped samples, the electric field-induced thickness strain (Sz ) could be determined by polarization (P) under the electric field and Young’s modulus (Y) of the elastomer, e.g., SZ = − YP = − ε 0 εYr E, in which ε0 and εr are the vacuum permittivity (8.85 × 10−12 F/m) and dielectric permittivity, respectively, and E is the electric field applied on the film sample [9,10,11]
Εr /Y is defined as an electromechanical efficiency, which characterizes the energy conversation efficiency
Summary
As an important branch of electro-active polymers (EAPs), dielectric elastomer (DE) has the merits of high electromechanical efficiency, large deformation, and fast response times, which has potential application in the fields of artificially intelligent and wearable devices, such as actuators, nano-generators, and biosensors [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8]. DEs’ shape and volume may change when exposed to an external electric field, accompanied by the conversion between electrical and mechanical energy. The higher the εr /Y, the larger the Sz may be realized under the given electric field, which means the DEs with high εr and low Y values are favorable to obtain large electromechanical strain. A low activation electric field (Ea ) is favorable for elastomers, especially for the wearable devices and medical instruments applications, where the high voltage is prohibited due to intimate contact with the human body
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