PIEZOELECTRICITY

appearance of positive electric charge on one side of certain nonconducting crystals and negative charge on the opposite side when the crystals are subjected to mechanical pressure. This effect is exploited in a variety of practical devices such as microphones, phonograph pickups, and wave filters in telephone-communications systems. Pressure on certain electrically neutral crystalsthose not having a centre of structural symmetrypolarizes them by slightly separating the centre of positive charge from that of the negative charge; equal and unlike charges on opposite faces of the crystal result. This charge separation may be described as a resultant electric field and may be detected by an appropriate voltmeter as a potential difference, or voltage, between the opposite crystal faces. This phenomenon, also called the piezoelectric effect, has a converse: the production of a mechanical deformation in a crystal across which an electric field or a potential difference is applied. A reversal of the field reverses the direction of the mechanical deformation. Alternating electric fields produce alternating mechanical vibrations of the same frequency. A piezoelectric material, such as a thin slab of quartz, can convert a high-frequency alternating electric signal to an ultrasonic wave of the same frequency. Or by the direct piezoelectric effect, such a crystal can convert a mechanical vibration, such as sound, into a corresponding electrical signal (alternating voltage). The converse piezoelectric effect is somewhat similar to electrostriction (q.v.). Piezoelectricity was discovered in 1880 by Pierre and Paul-Jacques Curie, who found that when they compressed certain types of crystals including quartz, tourmaline, and Rochelle salt, along certain axes, a voltage was produced on the surface of the crystal. The next year, they observed the converse effect, the elongation of such crystals upon the application of an electric current. For several decades piezoelectricity remained a laboratory curiosity. During World War I the converse piezoelectric effect was used to produce underwater acoustic waves in an early form of submarine-detecting sonar. Piezoelectric crystals later found wide use as frequency-control devices in radio communications. In World War II piezoelectric crystals were used in the detonators of air-dropped bombs; when the nose struck ground, the crystal sent a jolt of electricity to detonate the charge. The piezoelectric effect has subsequently been used in much electronic equipment, clocks and watches, cigarette lighters, and many other items. Rochelle salt crystals exhibit strong piezoelectric effects, and they are used primarily in phonograph pickups. The mechanical vibration of the needle in the groove is converted by the crystal into a constantly varying electrical impulse. A problem with Rochelle salt crystals, however, is that the strength of their piezoelectric effect can change substantially with temperature, making them unsuitable for many applications, such as radio communications devices. For these, quartz crystals are used. While quartz crystals have a much weaker piezoelectric effect, they can be cut in ways to make them resist the effects of temperature change. About 1940 the ceramic material barium titanate was discovered to exhibit strong piezoelectric properties after being subjected to high temperature in a strong electric field. Similar ceramic materials are now widely used in high-power piezoelectric devices.