Analysis of temperature effect in dielectric response of electrostrictive polymers for pseudo-pyroelectric operations

Thanks to their flexibility and easy processability, electroactive polymers have gained a lot of attention over the last decades. More specifically, dielectric electrostrictive polymers have been demonstrated to provide interesting ways for mechanical actuation and energy harvesting or for electrocaloric applications. This Letter aims at presenting an additional application potential of such materials, showing their ability in terms of converting thermal energy into electrical energy. More particularly, it is shown that such materials, once polarized through the application of a bias electric field, allow a polarization variation with the temperature, yielding the so-called pseudo-pyroelectric effect. Theoretical analysis, supported by experiments, therefore demonstrates that such a material can exhibit pseudo-pyroelectric activity that can be tuned with the applied electric field.