Bonding Optimization in Piezoelectric and Magnetostrictive Laminate Composites

Magnetoelectric (ME) materials are becoming relevant in the development of modern technologies for a large variety of applications such as sensors, actuators and energy harvesting, among others. In this parer, we report the effect of the adhesive bonding layers in magnetoelectric laminate composites formed of Terfenol-D/Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3-PbTiO3 (PMNT)/Terfenol-D in order to achieve an improved ME conversion performance. A novel bonding technique at room temperature is proposed, which uses conductive polymer nanocomposites. Two ME transducers are fabricated based on this technique having 1 wt.% and 2 wt.% concentration of Multiwalled Carbon Nanotubes (MWCNTs) mixed to an epoxy resin. A third magnetoelectric transducer is fabricated by a classical technique for comparison purposes. The output performances of the three ME transducers in a ME vibration converter were evaluated under similar operating conditions. Experimental investigations demonstrate that the magnetoelectric transducer bonded with 2 wt.% concentration of MWCNTs has better output performance than the two other ME transducers under similar excitation.