Research led by: Liwei Lin, professor of

mechanical engineering at UC Berkeley

Polyvinylidene Fluoride fibers,

polarized by Lin’s unique near-
field electrospinning technique

Angela Poe
II BS ME
Piezoelectricity and Power Suits
 25
Pyroelectricity
(Carl Linnaeus and Franz Aepinus) 20
Solar
Theorized piezoelectricity 15
(René Just Haüy and Antoine Becquerel) Other p-electric
10
Direct piezoelectric effect PVDF p-electric
5
(Pierre Curie and Jacques Curie)
0
Woldemar Voigt's Lehrbuch der
Kristallphysik (textbook on crystal physics) Energy Efficiency in %

zinc oxide / barium titanate nanogenerators

cheaper and more flexible!

Angela Poe
II BS ME
Piezoelectricity and Power Suits
Major sources:
– http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/179142.php
– Encyclopedia articles for “Piezoelectricity”
Angela Poe
II BS ME
Piezoelectricity and Power Suits
 Piezoelectric materials
• Quartz and several man-made crystals
• Berlinite (AlPO4), a rare phosphate mineral that is structurally identical to quartz
• Cane sugar
• Rochelle salt
• Topaz
• Tourmaline-group minerals
• Bone: Studies of Fukada et al. showed that these are due to collagen. Collagen exhibits
the polar uni-axial orientation of molecular dipoles in its structure and can be
considered a sort of dielectric material exhibiting quasi-permanent space charge and
dipolar charge. Potentials are thought to occur when a number of collagen molecules
are stressed in the same way displacing significant numbers of the charge carriers from
the inside to the surface of the specimen.
• Tendon, Silk, Enamel, Dentin
• Wood due to piezoelectric texture
• Polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF): PVDF exhibits piezoelectricity several times greater than
quartz. Unlike ceramics, where the crystal structure of the material creates the
piezoelectric effect, in polymers the intertwined long-chain molecules attract and repel
each other when an electric field is applied.