Study of a Mixed Conductive Layer Fabricated by Ion Implantation and Distribution Theory

Electrodes are essential parts of capacitors that can consist of a variety of materials depending on the application. In dielectric elastomer transducers (DETs)—a type of special variable capacitor—the electrode needs to deform with a soft base. However, the current carbon-based electrodes are not stable, and the metal-based ones are not flexible for use in DETs. Thus, the need to fabricate an electrode which can meet both the stability and flexibility requirements is extremely important. In this work, silver ions with energy levels of 40 keV were implanted into the surface of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) to explore the effect of ion implantation on surface conductivity. The experimental results showed that the surface resistivity of PDMS reached 251.85 kΩ per square and dropped by 10 orders of magnitude after ion implantation. This indicates that the surface conductivity was significantly improved. EDS characterization results showed that the maximum penetration depth that ions could reach was about 2.5 μm. The surface resistivity of the sample coated with carbon black was further reduced by an order of magnitude after ion implantation and changed more stably with time. A quasi-melting-collision model was established to investigate the distribution of carbon black particles. The concentration of carbon black particles at a distance from the PDMS surface followed a Gaussian-like distribution.