Dielectric breakdown, loss
Dielectrics are bad conductors of electricity. They lack free electrons or charge carriers in them to conduct electricity.
Dielectrics can be solid, liquid or gas example: wood, glycerine, air.
The value of permittivity is different for different materials. Recall from electrodynamics unit, displacement vector D is given by
It is easy to understand DIELECTRIC LOSS by taking the case of charging and discharging of a capacitor. During the
dischargung, instead of releasing the entire energy as electrical energy, a good amount of energy is released as heat. This is
known as dielectric loss.
No material is a perfect insulator. When bad conductors or dielectrics are exposed to sufficient electric field externally, there
comes a limit beyond which the insulator starts conducting. The corresponding voltage needed to produce such an electric field
is known as breakdown voltage and this mechanism is known as Dielectric breakdown.
Internal field
When a dielectric is subjected to an external field, then its molecules react to this field; the positive part of the atom moves away
and the negative electron shell moves towards the field, thus creating a temporary opposite field. This particular atom can be
now said as a dipole (two poles or charge).
In this way, all the atoms become dipoles and they cancel out the electric field of the adjacent atom. The only part where the
cancellation of the dipole electric field doesnt occur is near the boundary of the dielectric system. This is the internal dipole field,
also known as local field.
Internal field in a 3D dielectric is known as Lorentz field.
Claussius Mossotti equation
C-M equation gives the relation between macroscopic dielectric constant and microscopic polarisability of non-polar dielectric
materials
Limitation of CM equation
Only linear dielectrics are considered.
Magnetic materials
Dia, para and ferromagnetic
Paramagnetic
material
Dia, para and ferromagnetic
Piezoelectric materials
Piezo is a Greek word for pressure. Electricity from pressure. Example, Quartz crystal
When some ferroelectric crystals are compressed or stretched, they become polarized. This is known as piezoelectric effect.
To explain piezoelectricity, we can consider two categories
Materials which have centre of symmetry
Materials which have no centre of symmetry.
Materials which have centre of symmetry cannot have a net polarization effect due to equal and opposite dipole moments.
Positive and negative charges appear on the opposite surfaces and a potential difference develops along the perpendicular
direction of mechanical deformation – Direct piezoelectric effect
An emf applied to faces of the crystal causes mechanical deformation i.e expansion or contraction – inverse piezoelectric effect.
Piezoelectric methods – schematic diagrams
Superconducting materials
Meissner effect, Type I and II superconductor
Meissner effect – a superconducting material excludes all magnetic fields from its interior.
Depending on the way a material transits from superconducting state to normal state on the application of external magnetic
field, superconductors can be divided into two broad categories
Type I
Type II
Type I superconductors are soft super conductors. Perfectly diamagnetic. Zn, Al
Type II superconductors are hard. They exhibit incomplete meissner effect.
Meissner effect and susceptibility of
superconductors
Nanomaterials
Nanomaterials refers to materials having dimensions in the range of 10 nm to 100 nm. The physics is different on the nanoscale
from those at large scale. Nanoscience is based on the fact that the properties of materials change with the function of physical
dimensions of the materials.
See the picture of gold below
There are two ways nanoparticles could be constructed
Top-down
Bottom-up
Nanomaterials: Top-down and Bottom -up
Top Down process: Bulk materials are broken into nano-sized particles. No control
over the size of the particles
Ball milling methof
Laser sputtering
Bottom-up approach refers to builidng materials from the atomic size. Good control
over the size of the material
Sol-gel method
Electrodeposition
