Layer confinement effect on charge migration in polycarbonate/poly(vinylidene fluorid-co-hexafluoropropylene) multilayered films

Forced assembly microlayer coextrusion was used to produce polycarbonate/poly(vinylidene fluoride-co-hexafluoropropylene) [PC/P(VDF-HFP)] layered films for dielectric capacitor applications. Low field dielectric spectroscopy was systematically carried out on the layered films and controls. A low frequency relaxation was found that shifted to higher frequency and decreased in intensity as the P(VDF-HFP) layer thickness was reduced. The interfacial Maxwell-Wagner polarization, being layer thickness independent, could not account for this reduced low frequency relaxation behavior as the layer thickness decreased. Charge diffusion models by Sawada and Coelho, however, satisfactorily predicted the observed layer thickness effect, indicating that the migration of impurity ions in the P(VDF-HFP) layer caused the low frequency relaxation. A new, convenient fitting procedure was developed for the Sawada model yielding an ion concentration and diffusion coefficient of 2 x 10(21) ions/m(3) and 2 x 10(-13) m(2)/s, respectively, for films with layer thicknesses of 430 to 50 nm. Thicker layers of 7000 nm had significantly different diffusion parameters, which were attributed to differing crystal orientations in the P(VDF-HFP) layers. These findings show that low ion concentrations, whether from catalyst residue and processing or intentionally added, significantly affect the dielectric properties and can play a vital role in many applications (i.e., LCD displays, solar cells, light-emitting electrochemical cells, capacitors). (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4722348]