Efficiency of Lead-Free Nanocomposite Films Doped with MWCNT

Polyvinylidenefluoride (PVDF) with excellent pyroelectric and piezoelectric properties such as fast, dynamic response has great potential for use in touch/tactile sensors, infrared detectors and thermal vidicon/imaging devices. Due to the toxicity of the lead based compounds, though they have high efficiencies lead-free materials are preferred for research. PVDF:LiNbO3, PVDF:LiTaO3, and PVDF:BaTiO3 nanocomposites are fabricated with optimal characteristics using the solution casting technique. After characterizing for the best pyroelectric characteristics among these materials, the best material out of these three materials is selected and used the same concentration and weight percentages to make another nanocomposite film doped with multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT). The objective of this research was to find out the lead free materials efficiency as pyroelectric materials.These lead-free nanocomposites were also characterized using Raman Spectroscopy to get the finger print of these materials and their existence in the composite film. Raman Spectrum of the nanocomposite materials is presented using 785nm laser. Obtained Raman spectrum matches with the literature available. Authors also observed that both microscopic structure and environmental conditions contributed to observed properties. Among all the MWCNT doped nanocomposite materials PVDF:LiTaO3 showed the highest Pyroelectric coefficient which would make the best material to be used in space applications compared to the other materials at test.

Keywords: PVDF, composite films, dielectric constant, Raman Spectrum, pyroelectric detectors.