Synthesis and Characterization of Polymer-Ferroelectric composite

Abstract

Materials existing in nature can be generally classified into four basic categories i.e.metals, plastics, ceramics, composites. Composites are generally materials made by the combination of two or more materials each having different physical and chemical properties. Polymer ferroelectric composite is a composite of polymer and added ferroelectric ceramic. Ferroelectric materials have a wide range of application because of its high dielectric permittivity. But it has poor mechanical strength and lower break down strength, which can be compensated by the polymer which is the matrix. In addition their properties can be tuned for the requirement by changing the properties of the constituents. Because this is an upcoming field much work is needed to understand the behavior thoroughly so that can be effectively used for various applications. Here we prepare the composite of the polymer polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) with the ferroelectric ceramic BaZr0.1Ti0.9O3. BZT powder were prepared by solid state reaction route and preliminary X-ray analysis for BaZr0.1Ti0.9O3 was done which resulted the formation of single phase compound in cubic crystal system .Then the polymer composite of ferroelectric compound was prepared using polyvinyl alcohol as the polymer matrix. The SEM micrograph shows that the BZT particle distribution is homogenous with no porous matrix .The detailed study of dielectric and impedance properties of the material in a wide range of temperature (50-1500C) and frequency (102-106Hz) showed that these properties are highly temperature and frequency dependent.