2023 article
Microstructures and Ferroelectric Properties of Poly(vinylidene fluoride-ter-trifluoroethylene-ter-vinyl fluoride) Terpolymers
Han, Z., Qin, H., Chen, X., Xu, W., Liu, Y., Bernholc, J., & Wang, Q. (2023, June 1). MACROMOLECULES.
UN Sustainable Development Goal Categories
7. Affordable and Clean Energy
(Web of Science)
Source: Web Of Science
Added: July 3, 2023
The incorporation of comonomers as structural defects has been extensively exploited to modulate the structures and physical properties of poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF)-based ferroelectric polymers. Previous studies have shown that the large-sized comonomers can induce relaxor ferroelectricity in the PVDF-based terpolymers as a result of the stabilization of the helical conformation. Here, we show that, with incorporating a small-sized defect, vinyl fluoride (VF), into the copolymer, the resulting terpolymers preferentially adopt the polar all-trans conformation, as revealed by the structural characterizations and confirmed by density functional theory simulations. Consequently, the terpolymers exhibit robust ferroelectricity with an increased ferroelectric-to-paraelectric transition temperature and a higher coercive field as the VF content increases. This work systematically investigates the compositional dependence of the microstructures, crystalline structures, and ferroelectric and electromechanical properties of the terpolymers and stresses the vital role of comonomer size in tailoring the structures and properties of ferroelectric polymers.