Nano-scale leakage characterizations of the γ-APTES/ silica nanoparticles bionanocomposite

This work proposes the nano-scale leakage characterizations for post-UV irradiated membrane of a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)-treated hydrophobic fumed silica nanoparticles (NPs) and 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane mixture (γ-APTES+NPs+UV) by conductive atomic-force-microscopy (C-AFM). We found the leakage characterizations of the γ-APTES+NPs+UV are similar to those of dielectric material. Our results show that prolonged UV illumination (120s) and 100:1 γ-APTES/silica NPs mixing ratio result in the lowest leakage current and highest breakdown voltage.