| Thin films composed of the polymer polyvinylidene uoride (PVDF) and the ceramic nanoparticle titanium dioxide (TiO2) were fabricated via thermal vapor deposition. The goal of this research was to improve the amount of TiO2 deposited by varying the temperature and deposition time, to obtain more accurate thickness measurements, and to improve on the electrical properties. The electrical properties analyzed in this study were the dielectric constant, capacitance, breakdown strength and energy density of the capacitors. A starting mixture of PVDF, TiO2, and dimethylformamide (DMF) was prepared prior to deposition, where DMF was used only as a solvent. The elemental composition of the films was determined with energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDS) using a scanning electron microscope (SEM). Elemental mapping of the films shows that the nanoparticles are homogeneously distributed in the polymer. The ideal initial concentrations (which yield the largest TiO2 concentration) of PVDF and TiO2 were determined to be 83% and 17% respectively by weight. The highest weight percent of Ti was 32.4%, which was made with a deposition temperature of 474°C (corresponding to a current of 27 A) and deposition time of 13 minutes. Thefilm thickness was measured by combining EDS and ImageJ to be 243--46 nm. Parallel plate capacitors were fabricated by combining thermal vapor deposition for the dielectric and sputter coating for the electrodes. For the electrodes, the parallel plates are gold palladium (AuPd) with PVDF:TiO2 as the dielectric. The AuPd electrodes were deposited via sputter coating. Each electrode was sputtered for 100s, which yielded a thickness of 33 nm. The dielectric constant was determined experimentally to be 10.8 and estimated using the Maxwell-Garnett effective medium approximation to be 13.1. The capacitance of these capacitors averaged 30--2 nF. The breakdown voltage of the capacitor was 25--4 V, which corresponds to a breakdown strength of 103 MV/m. Lastly, the energy density was calculated to be 0.49 J/cm3. |
