Polymer nanocomposites for microactuation and magneto-electric transduction

In the last decade, electroactive polymers have attracted much attention especially because of their very actuating capabilities. Large strain is experimentally observed, but under quite high electrical field, which can be a severe drawback for actuating applications. First part of the present paper is concerned with the reduction of applied field onto electroactive polymer films to get a given strain level. Polyurethane (PU) films filled with carbon black (CB) nanoparticles exhibit relatively high strain level under a field of only 12.5 kV/mm. The simple easy-tomake method solution cast method was applied. Even though the generated stress level is still quite low, the present work shows high strain level under quite low field appliance by easy manufacturing, lightweight, and flexible polymer film. Besides, another interest of the present paper is in magneto-elasto-electric effect of a polymer film filled with some magnetic nano particles. Films filled with nonpiezoelectric but with magnetite particles has still short history. With the use of magneto materials, a large magnetic DC bias field is generally required, and it causes big problem on application. The films filled with some magnetite nanoparticles (Fe3O4 and Nickel) are fabricated then examined. It is clearly demonstrated that our films do not require any DC bias. Although linear polarization value is relatively small, the first step of the studies on magnetite nano-filled film is presented.