High Permittivity and High Permeability of Nanoparticles in Conducting Polymer Films

The purpose of this study is to synthesize a new material out of conducting polymers and magnetic nanoparticles that has high electric permittivity and high magnetic permeability. There is a strong desire in electronics for lighter, faster, cheaper and more bandwidth providing materials. There is also an interest with the military for materials that are light weight, have high electric permittivity and high magnetic permeability. A way to synthesize a material that meets those criteria is to use conducting polymers for their high permittivity properties and to disperse magnetic particles in the polymer for their high permeability properties. The synthesized material can be tuned to gain the desired measure of both permittivity and permeability and to achieve a low dielectric loss. There is also a need for electromagnetic shielding and absorption properties. Polymers that conduct electricity, so called synthetic metals such as polypyrrol and poly-p-phenylene, coupled with magnetic nanoparticles (iron, cobalt or nickel) can positively benefit the electronics industry in the previously mentioned properties. In the present thesis, Polymer A and Polymer B were blended with nanoparticles in various solvents and differing weight fractions of nanoparticles. The samples were tested on various spectrometers to find the reaction to the electromagnetic spectrum. The nanoparticle size and morphology were determined by using a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). The values for permittivity and permeability were determined for various concentrations of carbon coated nanoparticles by using various instruments. The results yielded high permittivity and moderate permeability.