Enhanced ferroelectric and piezoelectric responses in modified poly(vinylidene fluoride) polymers and nanocomposites

Recently, it was discovered that by defect modification, the electromechanical responses of P(VDF-TrFE) based ferroelectric polymers can be modified significantly. Here, we present a room temperature phase diagram which illustrates the compositions of two classes of PVDF based polymers investigated in this paper. In the compositions at PVDF homopolymer, by including bulky monomers such as CTFE (chlorotrifluoroethylene), CFE, or HFP (hexafluoropropylene), the piezoelectric properties of the homopolymer can be modified. For the electrostrictive polymers, the strain is directly proportional to the square of the polarization. In this paper, we will also show that by nanocompositing of terpolymer with nanofillers such as ZrC>2 or TiC>2 nanoparticles, even with a very small volume content of nanofillers, i.e., in volume content ~ 1 %, a marked enhancement of the polarization can be realized.