High dielectric and actuated properties of silicone dielectric elastomers filled with magnesium‐doped calcium copper titanate particles

In this paper, magnesium‐doped calcium copper titanate (M‐CCTO) submicron particles, which had high dielectric constant by a broadband dielectric analyzer, were successfully designed and prepared by the coprecipitation method. Then, the silicone elastomer filled with M‐CCTO particles had high dielectric constant, low dielectric loss, and actuated strain which was greatly improved in low electric field. Compared with CCTO/commercial polydimethyl siloxane (PDMS) composites, M‐CCTO/PDMS composites with 2 wt% content exhibited higher actuated strain, which increased 41.6% in a low electric field of 10 V/μm. It is found that the Mg doping enhanced the change in actuated strain approximately to 2 times in pure silicone elastomer, as well. Our work provided a simple, low‐cost and effective method to prepare high performance dielectric elastomers (DEs), which facilitated the wide application of DEs composites, especially in the biological and medical fields such as biosensors, artificial muscles, and prosthetics. POLYM. COMPOS., 39:691–697, 2018. © 2016 Society of Plastics Engineers