I.T.U.

ELECTRIC-ELECTRONCS FACULTY
CONTROL AND AUTOMATION ENGINEERING
DEPARTMENT

Piezoelectric Materials

Ozan Yıldız
040190557

Hakan Nuri Atahan

MAL 201E

January 24, 2021

1. Introduction

Throughout history, humanity has been developing and seeking ways to improve as
time progresses. For this reason, they felt the need to produce, develop, and use new tools. For
example, primitive knives and spears were developed to make hunting easier. Over time, as
humanity learned to use new materials, they increased the limits of what they could do. Hence
prehistoric times were named with the material used: Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age.
In fact, they made the first applications of material science without realizing it. Materials
science is a discipline that is used to determine the structures and properties of materials,
particularly solids, in combination with different disciplines such as physics, chemistry, and
engineering. As the fundamentals of materials' properties are understood, materials can be
selected and designed for a variety of applications, from structural steels to computer
microchips (Venables et al., 2018). Since materials have such a function, many studies have
been done, and the first piezoelectric effect was discovered in a study by Pierre Curie and
Jacques Curie in the 18th century.

2. Piezoelectricity

In the 18th century, Pierre Curie and Jacques Curie demonstrated piezoelectricity, and
Gabriel Lippmann was the first to show its reversible effect. Piezoelectricity is the electric
charge that accumulates in certain solid materials in response to applied mechanical stress.
The piezoelectric effect is the outcome of the linear electromechanical relationship between
mechanical and electrical conditions in crystalline material without symmetry of inversion
(Gautschi, 2002). The piezoelectric effect is also reversible, so if an electric current is applied
to these materials, they will change shape slightly. There are many areas such as producing
and detecting sound, generating high voltages, driving an ultrasonic nozzle, microbalances,
and clock generator in electronics, where these effects can be used. It also finds everyday uses
such as acting as the ignition source for cigarette lighters, push-start propane barbecues, used
as the time reference source in quartz watches, as well as in amplification pickups for some
guitars and triggers in most modern electronic drums. There are many materials with
piezoelectric effect, and the most common examples are quartz, a crystal material, and lead
zirconate titanate (PZT), a ceramic. Figure 1 shows the visualization of the direct and
converse piezoelectric effect.
 Figure 1 (Mishra, Unnikrishnan, Nayak & Mohanty, 2018)

3. Mechanism

The existence of the piezoelectric effect is closely correlated with electro-dipole

moments found in solids. Since each dipole is a vector, the dipole density P is a vector field.
The shift of polarization P by using mechanical stress is of critical importance for the
piezoelectric effect. This may be due either to a reconfiguration of the surrounding dipole
induction or to the reorientation of molecular dipole moments under the influence of external
stress (Safari & Akdoğan, 2011). The piezoelectric constitutive equations govern the direct
and the converse piezoelectric effects as follows:

In matrix form:

where ε and σ represent the strain and stress components; D and E refer to the electric
displacement and electric field components; s, e, and d are the elastic compliance, the
dielectric constant, and the piezoelectric coefficient, respectively. The superscripts c and d
have been added to differentiate between the converse and direct piezoelectric effects, though
in practice, these coefficients are numerically equal. The superscripts σ and E indicate that the
quantity is measured at constant stress and constant electric field, respectively (IEEE cited in
Sirohi & Chopra, 2000).

4. Piezoelectric Materials

Piezoelectric materials (PMs) can be broadly classified as either crystalline, ceramic,

or polymeric (Liu, Zhong, Lee, Lee & Lin, 2018). Materials such as quartz, tourmaline-group
minerals and gallium orthophosphate (GaPO4) are crystalline materials that show
piezoelectricity. As stated by Gautschi, piezoelectric ceramics are formed when the
polarization process is applied to ferroelectric ceramics. Lead zirconate titanate (PbZrO3 and
PbTiO3 – more commonly known as PZT) is the most commonly available piezoelectric
ceramic in industrial applications for actuators and sensors. Ceramics have advantages over
single crystals in that they are cheaper, readily available, and some have higher piezoelectric
effects. The downside to all ceramics is that they have greater after-effects and fatigue than
single crystals. Their material properties are also highly dependent on temperature. For high-
temperature applications, there are also several families of material, such as the bismuth
titanate family and the tungsten bronze family from which a suitable ceramic may be chosen
(2002). As stated by Heywang, Lubitz, and Wersing, ferroelectric polymers from the
polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) family dominated the research and technology of
piezoelectric polymers for many years. Piezoelectric reaction originates in polymers, from
piezoelectricity of dipole density in ferroelectric polymers to piezoelectricity intrinsic in
ferroelectrets (2008). The piezo-response of polymers is not as high as ceramics' response;
however, polymers hold properties that ceramics do not. Sappati and Bhadra stated that other
properties that make piezoelectric polymer materials significant include their
biocompatibility, biodegradability, low cost, and low power consumption compared to other
piezo-materials (ceramics, etc.) (2018). At least weak piezoelectric responses are present in
most materials. Trivial cases contain saccharose (table sugar), DNA, viral proteins included.
In addition to bacteriophage (Lee et al., 2012), a wood fiber actuator called cellulose fibers
has also been found to have a piezoelectric effect (Tao et al., 2019).
5. Applications

According to Market Report: World Piezoelectric Device Market, industrial and

manufacturing are currently the main piezoelectric devices application market, followed by
the automotive sector. High demand comes from both medical and information and
telecommunications instruments. Piezoceramics are the main material classes for piezoelectric
appliances, and piezopolymer has the highest development due to its small size and low
weight (2011). As shown in Figure 2, piezoelectric materials have applications in various
fields.

Figure 2 (Heywang, Lubitz & Wersing, 2008)

An example of high voltage and power sources is the electrical cigarette lighter, where
a spring-loaded hammer strikes a piezoelectric crystal by pushing a button, which produces a
high voltage of electricity that passes through a narrow spark gap which heats and ignites the
gas. Many kinds of gas burners have injection mechanisms based on piezo. The operating
theory of the piezoelectric sensor is that two opposite faces of the sensing element have to be
influenced in a transformed physical dimension. The sensor application most common in
piezoelectric microphones and piezoelectric pickups for electrically amplified guitars is the
detection of pressure variations in the form of sound. In particular, high-frequency
piezoelectric sensors are used in ultrasonic transducers for medical imaging and industrial
non-destructive research (Nanomotion, n.d.). As stated by Partovi Shabestari, Rashidian
Vaziri, Bakhshandeh, Alidokht, and Alizadeh, incredibly high electric fields only lead to
minor changes in the width of the crystal, with greater precision than a micrometer. This
width can be modified to make piezo crystals the most effective method for positioning
structures with extreme accuracy making them perfect for actuators (2019).

6. Result and Discussions

Although it sounds very fascinating that electric charges build-up due to mechanical
stress or the expansion of the material due to a given voltage, it has a few drawbacks. Unless
massive installations were set up, the amount of electricity generated is very small. This
electrical power will not be enough for us to use our current technological tools. Another
problem is that constant mechanical stress must be applied in order for a continuous current to
occur. Nevertheless, it also has a promising future in the energy field. Piezoelectric viruses
have great potential because viruses can reproduce in large quantities in a very short time.
This can be turned into a great advantage if it can be used well in the future. By generating
energy with piezoelectricity, perhaps we will be able to create a world that will reduce our
dependence on fossil fuels in the future.
References

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Lee, B. Y., Zhang, J., Zueger, C., Chung, W. J., Yoo, S. Y., Wang, E., Meyer, J., Ramesh, R.,
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