Pyroelectric figure of merit for a heterogeneous alternate layer Langmuir-Blodgett film system

The pyroelectric effect arises as a result of the change of the polarisation with temperature. Pyroelectric materials, which must have a non-centrosymmetric structure, exhibit an inherent electrical polarisation that changes when their temperature is changed. A heterogeneous monolayer system containing linear copolysiloxanes has been shown to produce a non-centrosymmetric structure in this work. Alternate layer Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) films have been fabricated using LB film deposition technique. The pyroelectric and dielectric properties of these alternate layer LB film assemblies have been measured and used to determine the pyroelectric figure of merit in the context of thermal imaging devices. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.