Terpolymer/copolymer blends on aluminum surface: Structural, caloric, and dielectric properties

We report structural, caloric, and dielectric properties of polymer blends of poly(vinylidenefluoride–trifluoroethylene–chlorofluoroethylene) terpolymer (a member of the relaxor polymers family that exhibits fast response speeds, giant electrostriction, high electric energy density, and large electrocaloric effect) and poly(vinylidenefluoride–chlorotrifluoroethylene) copolymer, developed on aluminium surface. Terpolymer films exhibit for a relaxor polymer very high values of the dielectric constant of ≈80 around room temperature, which decreases in terpolymer/copolymer blends to ≈60. This arises not only from the interference effect but also from the fact that copolymer additive disturbs the crystallizing process, as being revealed by X– ray diffraction and differential scanning calorimetry experiments. We show that addition of the copolymer enables us to govern the value of the dielectric constant of the films without influencing the relaxor dielectric dynamics.