High dielectric response in dilute nanocomposites via hierarchical tailored polymer nanostructures

Abstract

This paper presents a hierarchically designed polymer nanocomposite approach in which nanofillers at ultralow volume loading generate large dielectric enhancement in blends of high temperature dielectric polymers with tailored nanostructures. We blend poly(1,4-phenylenen ether sulfone) (PES) with polymers, such as polyetherimide (PEI), that possess more coiled chain conformations to tailor polymer nano-morphologies. Making use of such blends as the matrix, dilute nanocomposites with 0.65 vol. % loading of alumina nanoparticles (20 nm size) generate a marked enhancement in dielectric performance, i.e., raising the dielectric constant K from PES K = 3.9 (and PEI K = 3.2) to the dilute nanocomposites K = 7.6, a much higher enhancement compared with the dilute nanocomposites employing neat polymers as the matrix. The results show that polymer blends with tailored nano-morphologies as the matrix can lead to higher dielectric enhancement in dilute nanocomposites compared with neat polymers as the matrix.