Ionic Liquid Grafted Silicone Fillers for High Permittivity Dielectric Elastomers

A novel, high permittivity soft filler was synthesized through the grafting of an ionic liquid to a silicone chain. The filler exhibited low dielectric losses and a high dielectric breakdown relative to other soft, high permittivity silicone fillers due to improved compatibility with the polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) network. The fillers were incorporated within a platinum catalyzed commercial PDMS network (Sylgard 184) which resulted in an elastomer with a relative dielectric permittivity of 7.87 at 10
^-1
Hz and a dielectric breakdown strength of 27 V µm
^-1
.