No abstract

The flexibility and semicrystalline structure of electroactive polymers (EAPs) allows a variety of electroactivity developments. The EAPs have been attractive in many sensor-actuator technology fields, especially for electromechanical response [1] in piezoelectric, electrostrictive, and ferroelectric materials. We characterize the response of these polymers to an external electric field with their 1) electrical properties (permittivity, dielectric relaxation, and electrical breakdown) and 2) mechanical properties (Young's modulus). [2] Both characteristics ultimately affect their electromechanical effectiveness. Customized and optimized EAPs have many applications such as rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, [3] enhancing cardiac regeneration, [4] haptic feedback, [5] and tactile sensors. [6] The development of different methods to achieve an excellent actuation response of EAPs was investigated in the polymer/ composite, [7] blended polymer, [8] and structural design [9,10] to improve intrinsic properties. Xia et al. [11] introduced a novel relaxor ferroelectric polymer, leading to the future improvement of EAPs for a broader range of electronic applications. Terpolymers P(VDF-TrFE-CFE/CTFE) presenting the combination of the ferroelectric-paraelectric phase yield a high dielectric constant (ϵ r % 70) and large electromechanical reaction. However, the main drawback of these polymers has been their high electric field requirement (E > 100 V μm À1 ) [12] to reach sufficient strain. Hence, the introduction of the terpolymer/composite including an effective fabrication processing/assembly has been investigated to enhance electromechanical effectiveness. [12,13] This motivates the investigation of advanced terpolymer composites by simply adding the plasticizer agent into the terpolymer matrix. The plasticizer molecule leads to the increased molecular mobility of the polymer chains, resulting in an increasing dielectric permittivity and a decrease in the Young's modulus of the material. The charge trapping at the boundaries of the heterogeneous morphology tends to induce large Maxwell-Wagner-Sillars (MWS) polarization effects. Such an adaptation technique is able to exploit electromechanical coupling through areas of functional sensor-actuator fabrication technology. [13] During the last 10 years, EAPs have been used in several actuator applications, such as artificial muscles, [14] micropumps, [15,16] and smart steerable guidelines. [17] As a result of their flexible and excellent electromechanical properties, EAPs have become attractive soft-actuator candidates in electronic devices. Furthermore, the free-formable attribute of EAPs presents the possibility to carry out numerous different designs. Considering the manufacturing process of piezoelectric and ferroelectric materials for