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Updated: Jan 23, 2026

Chemical Synthesis of Porous Barium Titanate Thin Film and Thermal Stabilization of Ferroelectric Phase by Porosity-Induced Strain
Published on: March 27, 2018
Scalable synthesis of graft ferroelectric polymers with enhanced piezoelectricity
Zekai Fei1, Chenyi Li1, Ze Yuan1
1State Key Laboratory of Material Processing and Die & Mould Technology, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China; Guangdong HUST Industrial Technology Research Institute, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Manufacturing Equipment Digitization, Dongguan 523808, China.
Abstract:
Grafting structurally introduces branched side chains that differ from the main chain, resulting in improved properties of the polymers. This technique has been used to optimize the unsatisfactory piezoelectric coefficient d33 of ferroelectric polymers, mainly through stabilization of the polar phase. However, limited success has been achieved, yielding a small d33 of -40.3 pC N-1 in graft polymers and polymer nanocomposites, which is slightly greater than that of benchmark poly(vinylidene fluoride). In this study, we describe a novel class of ferroelectric polymers grafted by monoamines whose d33 is substantially larger than -91.5 pC N-1. Our combined experimental and theoretical results reveal that grafting not only exploits the competitive crystalline phases for the polymer composition near the morphotropic phase boundary but also induces strong local disorder near the branch points of the main chain, flattening the energetic landscape and improving the piezoelectric response. These results reveal that grafting is a useful technique for the scalable synthesis of ferroelectric polymers with high-piezoelectric properties for flexible and wearable applications.
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