Ferroelectric relaxor polymer method
AssigneeThe Penn State Research Foundation
InventorsQiming Zhang, Vivek Bharti
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Abstract
The invention is embodied in an electrical device which includes at least a layer of a ferroelectric polyvinylidine flouride polymer that has been processed to exhibit an electrostrictive strain of 4% or more when an electric field gradient of 50 megavolts per meter or greater is applied thereacross. The processing of the polymer preferably involves subjecting it to either electron beam radiation or gamma radiation. The polyvinylidine flouride polymer is selected from the group of: polyvinylidine fluoride, polyvinylidine fluoride-trifluoroethylene P(VDF-TrFE), polyvinylidine fluoride tetrafluoroethylene P(VDF-TFE), polyvinylidine fluoride trifluoroethylene-hexafluoropropylene P(VDF-TFE-HFE) and polyvinylidine fluoride-hexafluoropropylene P(VDF-HFE).
Claims6
The method of manufacturing a relaxor ferroelectric polymer comprising the steps of:
- (a) pressing polyvinylidine fluoride copolymer powder;
- (b) annealing the pressed copolymer of step (a);
- and
- (c) irradiating the annealed copolymer of step (b) in an oxygen free atmosphere with between about 2.5 MeV to 3 MeV electrons at a temperature in a range from between about 25 to 120 C and at an irradiation dose in a range from between about 30 to 175 Mrad.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.