High-performance piezoelectric composites via β phase programming

Yuanjie Su; Weixiong Li; Xiaoxing Cheng; Yihao Zhou; Shuai Yang; Xu Zhang; Chunxu Chen; Tiannan Yang; Hong Pan; Guangzhong Xie; Guorui Chen; Xun Zhao; Xiao Xiao; Bei Li; Huiling Tai; Yadong Jiang; Long-Qing Chen; Fei Li; Jun Chen

doi:10.1038/s41467-022-32518-3

High-performance piezoelectric composites via β phase programming

Nat Commun. 2022 Aug 18;13(1):4867. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-32518-3.

Authors

Yuanjie Su^#¹, Weixiong Li^#¹, Xiaoxing Cheng^#², Yihao Zhou^#³, Shuai Yang⁴, Xu Zhang⁵, Chunxu Chen¹, Tiannan Yang⁶, Hong Pan¹, Guangzhong Xie¹, Guorui Chen³, Xun Zhao³, Xiao Xiao³, Bei Li⁷, Huiling Tai¹, Yadong Jiang¹, Long-Qing Chen², Fei Li⁸, Jun Chen⁹

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Electronic Thin Films and Integrated Devices, School of Optoelectronic Science and Engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, 610054, Chengdu, China.
² Department of Materials Science and Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA, 16802, USA.
³ Department of Bioengineering, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA.
⁴ Electronic Materials Research Lab, Key Lab of Education Ministry/International Center for Dielectric Research, School of Electronic and Information Engineering, State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi'an Jiaotong University, 710049, Xi'an, China.
⁵ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Research Center for Materials Genome Engineering, Wuhan University of Technology, 430070, Wuhan, China.
⁶ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA, 16802, USA. tuy123@psu.edu.
⁷ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Research Center for Materials Genome Engineering, Wuhan University of Technology, 430070, Wuhan, China. libei@whut.edu.cn.
⁸ Electronic Materials Research Lab, Key Lab of Education Ministry/International Center for Dielectric Research, School of Electronic and Information Engineering, State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi'an Jiaotong University, 710049, Xi'an, China. ful5@xjtu.edu.cn.
⁹ Department of Bioengineering, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA. jun.chen@ucla.edu.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Polymer-ceramic piezoelectric composites, combining high piezoelectricity and mechanical flexibility, have attracted increasing interest in both academia and industry. However, their piezoelectric activity is largely limited by intrinsically low crystallinity and weak spontaneous polarization. Here, we propose a Ti₃C₂T_x MXene anchoring method to manipulate the intermolecular interactions within the all-trans conformation of a polymer matrix. Employing phase-field simulation and molecular dynamics calculations, we show that OH surface terminations on the Ti₃C₂T_x nanosheets offer hydrogen bonding with the fluoropolymer matrix, leading to dipole alignment and enhanced net spontaneous polarization of the polymer-ceramic composites. We then translated this interfacial bonding strategy into electrospinning to boost the piezoelectric response of samarium doped Pb (Mg_1/3Nb_2/3)O₃-PbTiO₃/polyvinylidene fluoride composite nanofibers by 160% via Ti₃C₂T_x nanosheets inclusion. With excellent piezoelectric and mechanical attributes, the as-electrospun piezoelectric nanofibers can be easily integrated into the conventional shoe insoles to form a foot sensor network for all-around gait patterns monitoring, walking habits identification and Metatarsalgi prognosis. This work utilizes the interfacial coupling mechanism of intermolecular anchoring as a strategy to develop high-performance piezoelectric composites for wearable electronics.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

Nanofibers*
Polymers

Substances

Polymers