Electrostrictive properties of poly(vinylidenefluoride-trifluoroethylene-chlorotrifluoroethylene)

Terpolymers of vinylidene fluoride (VDF), trifluoroethylene (TrFE), and chlorotrifluoro-ethylene (CTFE) were synthesized as potential materials for electromechanical transduction. These terpolymers had relatively high molecular weights (∼30 kg/mol) and CTFE levels in the range of 5-10 mol %. The presence of the bulky CTFE units disrupts the sequence length of the crystal, which lowers both the melting and Curie transitions; however, the degree of crystallinity remains high. The formation of smaller, more mobile polar domains gives rise to good electromechanical response. At low electric fields (7 MV/m), longitudinal strains as high as 0.5% are attained. This is significantly higher than the strains achieved with the same terpolymer obtained by bulk polymerization. The present materials exhibit a low mechanical modulus (ca. 0.2 GPa) relative to other VDF-TrFE copolymers. This might limit their use, depending on the application.