Critical point in ferroelectric Langmuir-Blodgett polymer films

Authors

• Stephen Ducharme, University of Nebraska - LincolnFollow
• A.V. Bune, University of Nebraska - Lincoln
• L.M. Blinov, Institute of Crystallography of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia
• V.M. Fridkin, Institute of Crystallography of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia
• S.P. Palto, Institute of Crystallography of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia
• A.V. Sorokin, Institute of Crystallography of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia
• S.G. Yudin, Institute of Crystallography of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

January 1998

Comments

Published by American Physical Society. Physical Review B 57, 25-28 (1998). http://prl.aps.org. Copyright © 1998 American Physical Society. Permission to use.

Abstract

The ferroelectric critical point has been found in a ferroelectric polymer by exploring the influence of the electric field on the paraelectric-ferroelectric phase transition. Dielectric and pyroelectric measurements on 30-monolayer-thick films of the crystalline copolymer poly(vinylidene fluoride-trifluoroethylene) grown by Langmuir-Blodgett deposition show a single hysteresis loop below the zero-field phase transition temperature T_c0=80±10 °C, double hysteresis loops between T_c0 , and the critical temperature T_cr=145±5 °C, and no hysteresis above T_cr where the critical electric field is E_cr=0.93±0.1X10⁹ V/m.