All-printed multilayer materials with improved magnetoelectric response

Abstract

Two decades ago, the “polymer-based magnetoelectric” idea changed thinking in magnetoelectric (ME) materials scientific community, which led to a new generation of powerful materials and an increased focus on controlling materials properties, as well as in the implementation into real applications. Nowadays, the successful application of those materials is closely related to the processing and integration of ME materials by additive manufacturing techniques on the cutting edge interface of materials science with chemistry, physics, biology and engineering. Here a novel screen-printed and flexible ME material is developed based on poly(vinylidene fluoride-co-trifluoroethylene) P(VDF–TrFE) as the piezoelectric phase and poly(vinylidene fluoride)(PVDF–CFO) as the magnetostrictive phase. The all-printed ME composite exhibits a ferromagnetic behavior with 16 emu g⁻¹ saturation magnetization, −26 pC N⁻¹ piezoelectric response and a ME voltage coefficient (α) of 164 mV cm⁻¹ Oe⁻¹ at a longitudinal resonance frequency of 16.2 kHz. Such optimized magnetic, piezoelectric and ME behavior associated with the reduced cost of assembly, easy integration into devices and the possibility to be obtained over flexible and large areas trough screen printing demonstrates the suitability of the developed material for applications such as printed electronics, sensors, actuators, and energy harvesters.