An Efficient Phase Field Model for Electrostatics in Complex Dielectric Heterostructures

At the microstructural level, dielectric inhomogeneity is ubiquitous in common ceramic, polymer and composite materials. If the characteristic length scale of the dielectric heterostructure is critical to the problem of interest the position dependent dielectric constant needs to be explicitly considered. Such examples include dielectric performance of a composite, ionic transport in metal oxides containing precipitates, micropores and/or cracks (e.g., during high temperature metal oxidation), and dielectrophoresis of small particles. A bound-charge phase field model is developed to address the dielectric heterogeneity problem. The model solves electrostatic problems by using a fast-converging iteration algorithm and Fast Fourier Transform. Excellent efficiency of the model is observed that demonstrates its potential for many practical applications.