CONDUCTIVITY AND PERMITTIVITY OF METAL-POLYMER COMPOSITES

The behaviour of conductivity σ and permittivity ε of metal-polymer composites comprising Ni particles dispersed in the phenilon was studied. It is found that the percolation-like behaviour of σ and ε, which is observed when the Ni particles are the sizes of 1-3 µm (micro-dispersed particles), gave way to another behaviour characterized by an additional contribution to σ and ε below the percolation threshold when the Ni particles are the sizes of ≤ 30 nm (nanoparticles). This peculiarity of the behaviour of σ and ε of the composites can be explained in the frame of the network hierarchy model of composites, which was proposed recently by Balberg et al.