Ferro-electric nanoparticles in polyvinyl acetate (PVAc) matrix – A method to enhance the dielectric constrant of polymers.

In order to take advantage of the possibilities for constructing electronic devices, offered by organic materials, it is essential to be able to control their electrical characteristics. By incorporating tetragonal barium titanate nanoparticles with a phosphonic acid ligand into a matrix of poly-vinyl acetate it has been shown that it is possible to increase the relative permittivity of the polymer. The upper limit of this effect has not yet been found, although carrying out the same work using barium titanate filler without the ligands exhibits behaviour consistent with conduction effects that occur at the percolation limit of the polymer. The devices produced using the ligand exhibit even distribution of nanoparticles within the polymer matrix and good and reproducible electrical characteristics.The authors would like to thank EPSRC (Grant #EP/E047785/1) for supporting this work