DETERMINATION OF THE PIEZOELECTRIC PYROELECTRIC RESPONSE OF POLYTRIFLUOROVINYL ACETATE AND OTHER PIEZOELECTRIC MATERIALS

The piezoelectric and pyroelectric response characteristics for a variety of polymers and crystalline reference materials were correlated with their refractive index (n) and McGinniss equation x' values. A general predictive relationship was developed using these n and x' parameters which was then used to estimate the piezoelectric d and g constants for polytrifluorovinyl acetate. The predicted d and g values (8 x 10(-12) CN-1 and 180 x 10(-3) V m N-1) were then compared with the actual experimentally determined d and g values (11 x 10(-12) C N-1 and 100 x 10(-3) V m N-1) for polytrifluorovinyl acetate. Similar studies (physical and electrical property correlations with chemical structures and experimental verification of the correlations) were carried out for determining the pyroelectric coefficient of polytrifluorovinyl acetate. The McGinniss equation was shown to exhibit a higher degree of accuracy in correlating physical/electrical properties of polymers with their chemical structures as compared with other similar chemical structure/property correlation relationships reported in the literature.