The dielectric behavior of polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF), nanocrystalline nickel (nc-Ni) composites has been investigated over a broad frequency range of 40Hz–10MHz. High effective dielectric constant (εeff=2050) and low loss (tanδ=10) at 100Hz have been observed near the percolation threshold. To the best of our knowledge, this is the highest εeff value reported to date among the PVDF based metal-polymer composites. The dielectric properties have been explained by using boundary layer capacitor effect and percolation theory while the dielectric anomalies are attributed to process of fabrication leading to thick insulating layer between the filler particles forming a gap in effective tunneling range of two filler particles and also making a difficulty in probability of higher order tunneling.

The effect of processing conditions and filler particle size/surface area on the dielectric behavior of polyvinyledene fluoride/nickel composites is reported. Large enhancement of low frequency dielectric constant with reduction in metal particle size in a metal-polymer composite is observed. Enhancement in the dielectric constant has been attributed to increase in interfacial area and consequent interfacial polarization with reduction in metal particle size. The increased interparticle contacts from the nearest neighbors result in enhanced tunneling probability leading to lowering of percolation threshold for nanosized nickel/polyvinyledene fluoride composites as compared to micron nickel/polyvinyledene fluoride composites.

We report a comprehensive study on the structure and magnetic properties of ultrafine Ni nanoparticles prepared by the borohydride reduction method. A spontaneous surface oxide layer of NiO encapsulates the Ni particles, as these have been prepared under ambient atmosphere. From the x-ray diffraction ͑XRD͒ pattern, the "as-prepared" sample has been identified as Ni in a tetragonal crystal structure, stabilized by the incorporation of oxygen atoms in the Ni lattice. On annealing this sample in air at different temperatures, the XRD patterns showed an interesting feature: unexpected fcc Ni peaks appeared together with the usual NiO peaks. Anomalous behavior is also observed in the M-H curves, with the as-prepared sample showing a linear response with field and low values of magnetization and the annealed samples showing ferromagnetism with large coercivity ͑290 Oe͒ and high magnetization values. These surprising and seemingly contradictory observations have been coherently explained on the basis of a proposed phenomenological model. Furthermore, we attribute the observed low magnetization values of the as-prepared sample to an antiferromagnetic superexchange interaction between some of the Ni atoms, mediated by the dissolved oxygen atoms in the Ni lattice.

No abstract

No abstract