Deformable dielectric is an elastic insulating material, capable of large deformation when subject to a voltage load but suffering failures at instabilities such as pull-in, snap-through, or dielectric breakdown, etc.  In this paper, we investigate the modes of polarization in different elastic dielectrics and the actuation modes when the material fails.  The instability will be markedly modified and suppressed by the polarization with a transition of actuation mode for an attainable large deformation.  We interpret the mechanisms of the stabilization with a conclusion on the material properties requested as a guidance of giant stable actuation, aiming to contribute to a high-performance dielectric elastomer.

This research work is now published by Europhysics Letters 

Polarization-modified instability and actuation transition of deformable dielectric  EPL, 95 (2011) 37006  doi: 10.1209/0295-5075/95/37006