Numerical Investigation of Percolation Threshold in Ellipsoidal Composites: A Bottom-Up Approach for Carbon-Based Electromagnetic Materials Development

Abstract

A Monte Carlo (MC) model for the calculation of the percolation threshold in the composite filled with ellipsoids of revolution is developed to simulate the real experimental situation of percolative composites in which functional additives do not penetrate each other. The important advantage is that the MC model can be easily applied to multi-components composites, e.g., containing graphene nanoplatelets, carbon black and carbon nanotubes, by means of utilising the ellipsoids of different aspect ratios with the filling fraction corresponding to concentrations of each type of inclusion. The developed model could be used in a pre-experimental step for producing effective close-to percolation and percolated nanocomposites for various electromagnetic applications to avoid time and resources consuming the “sort-out” experimental phase of composition optimization, and could be utilized as the first step of the bottom-up material approach to touch the macroscopic platform for antennas/circuit realization