The electromechanical (E-M) effect, which can convert energy between the electric form
and mechanical form, is the foundation for many current technologies and plays a critical
role in the development of the next generation. Although there are different mechanisms
to create the E-M effect, the piezoelectric and electrostrictive effects have been extensively studied. Piezoelectric crystals and ceramics are the primary materials for current E-M devices, such as sonar transducers, pressure/stress sensors, ultrasonic transducers, high frequency filters, acoustic resonators, ultrasonic motors, actuators and microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). From an E-M device point of view, polymeric materials
provide many unique advantages, including high flexibility, light weight, high stress
impact resistance, low process temperature and easy processing. Therefore, it would be
advantageous to fabricate E-M devices from polymeric materials. Unfortunately, traditional piezoelectric polymers exhibit a much lower E-M performance than crystals and
ceramics. It therefore makes sense to improve the E-M performance of the polymeric