Temperature-dependent electro-mechanical actuation sensitivity in stiffness-tunable BaTiO3/polydimethylsiloxane dielectric elastomer nanocomposites

Stiffness-tunable BaTiO3/polydimethylsiloxane (BT/PDMS) dielectric elastomer composites using dimethylsilicone oil (DMSO) as the stiffness tuner were prepared. Significant improvements in both electromechanical actuation sensitivity (0%–490%) and actuation areal strain (0%–350%) can be observed from BT/PDMS samples with DMSO, which should be mainly contributed to the physical swelling behavior. Under wide testing temperature range, the stiffness-tuned BT/PDMS composite exhibited an excellent thermal stability of both dielectric and mechanical performance. The electromechanical sensitivity of BT/PDMS composite can be effectively tuned higher than that of VHB 4910 acrylics via the addition of DMSO under in vivo temperature range (20 °C–40 °C). This simple way endows PDMS-based composites the higher performance for being applied as implantable dielectric elastomer materials.