Electrically Insulating Plasma Polymer/ZnO Composite Films

Ahmed Al-Jumaili; Avishek Kumar; Kateryna Bazaka; Mohan V Jacob

doi:10.3390/ma12193099

Electrically Insulating Plasma Polymer/ZnO Composite Films

Materials (Basel). 2019 Sep 23;12(19):3099. doi: 10.3390/ma12193099.

Authors

Ahmed Al-Jumaili^{1

2}, Avishek Kumar³, Kateryna Bazaka^{4

5

6}, Mohan V Jacob⁷

Affiliations

¹ Electronics Materials Lab, College of Science and Engineering, James Cook University, Townsville, QLD 4811, Australia. Ahmed.Aljumaili@my.jcu.edu.au.
² Physics Department, College of Science, Anbar University, Ramadi 31001, Iraq. Ahmed.Aljumaili@my.jcu.edu.au.
³ Electronics Materials Lab, College of Science and Engineering, James Cook University, Townsville, QLD 4811, Australia. Avishek.kumar@my.jcu.edu.au.
⁴ Electronics Materials Lab, College of Science and Engineering, James Cook University, Townsville, QLD 4811, Australia. kateryna.bazaka@qut.edu.au.
⁵ School of Chemistry, Physics, Mechanical Engineering, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD 4000, Australia. kateryna.bazaka@qut.edu.au.
⁶ Research School of Electrical, Energy and Materials Engineering, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia. kateryna.bazaka@qut.edu.au.
⁷ Electronics Materials Lab, College of Science and Engineering, James Cook University, Townsville, QLD 4811, Australia. Mohan.Jacob@jcu.edu.au.

Abstract

In this report, the electrical properties of plasma polymer films functionalized with ZnO nanoparticles were investigated with respect to their potential applications in biomaterials and microelectronics fields. The nanocomposite films were produced using a single-step method that combines simultaneous plasma polymerization of renewable geranium essential oil with thermal decomposition of zinc acetylacetonate Zn(acac)₂. The input power used for the deposition of composites were 10 W and 50 W, and the resulting composite structures were abbreviated as Zn/Ge 10 W and Zn/Ge 50 W, respectively. The electrical properties of pristine polymers and Zn/polymer composite films were studied in metal-insulator-metal structures. At a quantity of ZnO of around ~1%, it was found that ZnO had a small influence on the capacitance and dielectric constants of thus-fabricated films. The dielectric constant of films with smaller-sized nanoparticles exhibited the highest value, whereas, with the increase in ZnO particle size, the dielectric constant decreases. The conductivity of the composites was calculated to be in the in the range of 10^-14-10^-15 Ω^-1 m^-1, significantly greater than that for the pristine polymer, the latter estimated to be in the range of 10^-16-10^-17 Ω^-1 m^-1.

Keywords: biomaterials; dielectric characteristics; electrically insulating coatings; plasma-assisted technique; polymer–nanoparticle composites; renewable geranium oil.