Mechanical response of barium-titanate/polymer 0–3 ferroelectric nano-composite film under uniaxial tension

Ferroelectric polymer based 0–3 composite films are attractive for applications such as capacitors and electric energy storage devices. In this paper, deformation and fracture behavior under uniaxial tension is characterized for BaTiO3/poly(vinyledene fluoride-trifluoroethylene) (abbreviated as BT/P(VDF-TrFE)) ferroelectric composite film. Compared with the pure P(VDF-TrFE) copolymer film, the composite film with a small volume fraction of BT powders shows an enhanced ductility in accompany with reduced stiffness and fracture strength. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) observation and X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis are carried out to examine the morphology and microstructure change during uniaxial tension. It is demonstrated that addition of a small amount of BaTiO3 powders into the copolymer matrix inhibits the growth of the crystallite size, causes reduction in the crystalline content and a loosely packed molecular chain structure. Consequently, the fracture strain increases while the stiffness and fracture strength decreases for the composite films.