Improvement of the magneto-electric effect of composites loaded with different magnetic particles for current sensor applications

This article proposes a methodology to improve the magneto-electric effect of a poly(vinylidene fluoride-co-trifluoroethylene) P(VDF-TrFe) copolymer, doped with nanoparticles of nickel (Ni) and nickel iron (NiFe). The preparation of the composite films were achieved through the solvent casting approach. First, P(VDF-TrFe) powders and (Ni and NiFe) nanoparticles are dispersed in dimethyl formamide (DMF) as a solvent to form a homogeneous solution. Then, the solution obtained is deposited on a flexible substrate by a spin coating process. After that, the NiFe doped composites are corona polarized, to improve the magneto-electric response of these composites. The purpose of this work is to investigate the influence of the magnetic charges added in the P(VDF-TrFe) copolymer, and to reveal the effect of corona charging (polarization) on the magneto-electric behavior of the used composites. The obtained results in this article show that both the doping and the electric polarization (piezo coefficient) significantly affect the generated alternating current during the application of an alternating magnetic field. However, the magneto-electric response of composites increases by doping and charging via corona poling effect and also by increasing the excitation frequency and the magnetic field amplitude. In addition, the magneto-electric responses of all composites after corona polarization were also discussed. This indicates that the magneto-electric coefficient and the current can be increased with polarized composites. A good response is observed for P(VDF-TrFe) + 3% Ni with a piezoelectric coefficient d33 = 21.2 (pC/N