electric potential

negative permittivity

lead zirconate titanate

poly vinylidene fluoride

pedot pss

piezoelectric

poly vinylidene

breakdown strength

Cell Reports Physical Science

Piezoelectric polymers have attracted a great deal of attention for flexible electromechanical applications but still suffer from low piezoelectric coefficients (∼−24 pC/N) in commercial films. Here, we propose a dielectric micro-capacitance strategy to enhance piezoelectricity via texturing well-aligned MXene (Ti 3 C 2 T x ) sheets into a poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) matrix using a scalable blade-coating technique. This aligned MXene/PVDF composite presents a piezoelectric coefficient of −63.3 pC/N due to its improved permittivity. More importantly, a modified model of the piezo-composite is put forward to further understand the interfacial polarization and dielectric relaxation effect in this percolation system for designing piezo-composites with better performances. Notably, this work might motivate new design principles and approaches to regulate electric behavior and promote piezoelectricity in electroactive polymers. • Composites with well-aligned fillers are fabricated via a scalable blade-coating method • The gap between dielectric properties and piezoelectricity in composites is narrowed • An appropriate model is put forward to guide the design of piezoelectric composites Tian et al. report an effective strategy to improve the piezoelectricity of composites via texturing well-aligned MXene sheets into PVDF. The device model is further put forward to uncover the underlying piezoelectric mechanisms and to motivate new design principles for the development of piezoelectric composites with improved performances.

Dielectric micro-capacitance for enhancing piezoelectricity via aligning MXene sheets in composites