Inter-Particle Distance Measurement of TiO₂/Epoxy Nanocomposite with a Low Amount of Nanofiller

This paper has developed a method for measuring inter-particle distances of TiO2/epoxy nanocomposite using Delaunay triangulation. Three dimensional (3D) models where 833 TiO2 nanoparticles were distributed in an epoxy resin with 4.4 μm×4.8 μm×2.5 μm were obtained by conducting FIB-SEM observation and 3D reconstruction on TiO2/epoxy nanocomposite sample with the filler amount of 0.1 vol%. The inter-particle distances of 3D model of TiO2/epoxy nanocomposite sample were measured by using the developed method. The measured inter-particle distances were longer than the inter-particle distance when the particles were ideally arranged in a 3D lattice structure, which was commonly used. Our developed method measuring inter-particle distances would contribute to further elucidate dielectric breakdown mechanism of nanocomposites.