Interfacial piezoelectric polarization locking in printable Ti<sub>3</sub>C<sub>2</sub>T<sub>x</sub> MXene-fluoropolymer composites.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 34039975.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-021-23341-3 and PMC identifier 8155213.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Piezoelectric fluoropolymers convert mechanical energy to electricity and are ideal for sustainably providing power to electronic devices. To convert mechanical energy, a net polarization must be induced in the fluoropolymer, which is currently achieved via an energy-intensive electrical poling process. Eliminating this process will enable the low-energy production of efficient energy harvesters. Here, by combining molecular dynamics simulations, piezoresponse force microscopy, and electrodynamic measurements, we reveal a hitherto unseen polarization locking phenomena of poly(vinylidene fluoride-co-trifluoroethylene) (PVDF-TrFE) perpendicular to the basal plane of two-dimensional (2D) Ti<sub>3</sub>C<sub>2</sub>T<sub>x</sub> MXene nanosheets. This polarization locking, driven by strong electrostatic interactions enabled exceptional energy harvesting performance, with a measured piezoelectric charge coefficient, d<sub>33</sub>, of -52.0 picocoulombs per newton, significantly higher than electrically poled PVDF-TrFE (approximately -38 picocoulombs per newton). This study provides a new fundamental and low-energy input mechanism of poling fluoropolymers, which enables new levels of performance in electromechanical technologies.