Stretching-induced percolation in polyvinylidene fluoride and nickel composites
(2368–2373)  Journal of Applied Polymer  Science 120 #4 (2011)
Yu and Li of Ningbo University, China, stretched polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) and nickel (Ni) composites at 120°C.  There was an abrupt increase in dielectric constants and conductivities with stretching ratio called the stretching-induced percolation.  When SR was near the threshold, dielectric constants showed 17 times improvement and conductivities displayed four to five orders of magnitude enhancement at 100 Hz in low Ni fraction composites.  (RDC 3/21/2011)

12/3/2010
Flexible Sm–Fe/polyvinylidene fluoride heterostructural film with large magnetoelectric voltage output
(# 212902) Applied Organometallic Chemistry 24 #12 (2010)
Zhao et al prepared a Sm–Fe/polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) heterostructural film was by depositing Sm–Fe nanoclusters onto the flexible PVDF film using cluster beam deposition method.  The PVDF film acts as both piezoelectric layer and substrate.  Such flexible heterostructural film with large magnetoelectric output makes it promising to be widely used for the weak magnetic-field detection.  (RDC 11/29/2010)

10/29/2010
Morphological and dielectric properties of barium chloride-filled poly(vinylidene fluoride) films
(pages 1782–1789)Polymer Composites 31 #10 (2010)
Ozkazanc et al of Kocaeli University, Turkey showed that the filled and unfilled films include α-, β-, and γ-crystalline phases.  By a 20% filling, 73% increase was obtained in the total degree of crystallinity.  Since the BaCl2 formed fluorine bridges over the chain segments on the crystal lamellar surface, the γ-crystalline phase decreased, whereas the total degree of crystallinity increased. Dielectric measurements showed that maximum of the dielectric loss factor belonging to β-relaxation transition decreased linearly with filling level. The filling process did not have any effect on the real dielectric constant till α-relaxation transition region. However, in the α-relaxation transition region, it was determined that the real dielectric constant increased linearly with filling level.  (RDC 12/15/2010)