Screen-Printed Ferroelectric P(VDF-TrFE)-co-PbTiO₃ and P(VDF-TrFE)-co-NaBiTi₂O₆ Nanocomposites for Selective Temperature and Pressure Sensing

Piezo- and pyroelectricity is an intrinsically combined material property for all ferroelectric materials. While the pyroelectric coefficients of most ferroelectric ceramics and polymers have the same sign, their piezoelectric coefficients have opposite ones. On this basis, we can create a polymer–ceramic nanocomposite material where either the piezo- or the pyroelectric effect is suppressed by a selective poling of the single constituents, a concept that was shown for composite pellets in the late 1990s. Motivated by the current demand for lightweight and low-cost piezoelectric sensors with reduced cross-sensitivity to temperature variations, we have taken up this idea and formulated screen-printable nanocomposite pastes from poly(vinylidene fluoride-trifluoroethylene (P(VDF-TrFE)) and lead titanate (PbTiO3, PT) or sodium bismuth titanate (NaBiTi2O6 or BNT) nanoparticles, respectively. We demonstrate that printed sensors on flexible substrates based on these materials can be conditioned by selective poling of the nanoparticles and the polymer matrix to show either only piezoelectric or only pyroelectric sensor response. We examined the degree of cross-talk between the thermal and pressure sensing channels and show a reduction of over 90% cross-sensitivity for the ferroelectric composites compared to pure P(VDF-TrFE) sensors.