Enhanced dielectric constants and shielding effectiveness of, uniformly dispersed, functionalized carbon nanotube composites

Abstract

It was seen that composites constituted of functionalized single-walled nanotubes (SWNTs) dispersed in a reactive ethylene terpolymer (RET) matrix possess a complex dielectric permittivity an order of magnitude larger than composites composed of pristine SWNTs and two orders of magnitude larger than functionalized multiwalled nanotube-RET composites. We seek to understand such an enhancement, both in terms of uniform nanotube dispersion and through a parallel resistor-capacitor model. We subsequently show that the ac electrical conductivity is a good predictor of the electromagnetic interference shielding effectiveness of nanocomposites.