Conformational defects in high-strain, electrostrictive polymers

Alternative methodologies are sought whereby high-strain electrostrictive polymer can be generated without the need of electron-beam irradiation, which is expensive and difficult to reproduce. One of these alternative approaches has been the use of chlorinated P(VDF-TrFE) copolymers, which in the present paper are subsequently referred to as "terpolymers". To be converted into high-strain electrostrictive films, terpolymers do not need to be irradiated, a significant advantage. Like P(VDF-TrFE), the terpolymers retain considerable polarization due to the existence of polar crystalline regions, but these ferroelectric regions are short-range due to the presence of the chlorine atoms, which disrupt the long-range ferroelectric regions. In this paper, we present Fourier transform infrared spectroscopic evidence and computational results that strongly indicate that the chlorine atom does indeed favor formation of disordered crystalline regions.