Principles of Piezoelectricity

Thomarm H, Wersing W (1982) Principles of piezoelectric ceramics for mechanical filters. Ferroelectrics... 

In this chapter the basic principles of piezoelectric transducers will first be reviewed. Once we have covered the basics of the propagation of elastic waves through piezoelectric solids, we will turn to the study of how resonant structures respond to surface mass loading. The transformation of mass sensors into chemical sensors will be discussed in terms of existing work and the potential for future developments. 

Book content is otganized in seven chapters and one Appendix. Chapter 1 is devoted to the fnndamental principles of piezoelectricity and its application including related histoiy of phenomenon discoveiy. A brief description of crystallography and tensor analysis needed for the piezoelectricity forms the content of Chap. 2. Covariant and contravariant formulation of tensor analysis is omitted in the new edition with respect to the old one. Chapter 3 is focused on the definition and basic properties of linear elastic properties of solids. Necessary thermodynamic description of piezoelectricity, definition of coupled field material coefficients and linear constitutive equations are discussed in Chap. 4. Piezoelectricity and its properties, tensor coefficients and their difierent possibilities, ferroelectricity, ferroics and physical models of it are given in Chap. 5. Chapter 6. is substantially enlarged in this new edition and it is focused especially on non-linear phenomena in electroelasticity. Chapter 7. has been also enlarged due to mary new materials and their properties which appeared since the last book edition in 1980. This chapter includes lot of helpful tables with the material data for the most today s applied materials. Finally, Appendix contains material tensor tables for the electromechanical coefficients listed in matrix form for reader s easy use and convenience. 

Fokker Bond Tester. An ultrasonic inspection technique commonly used for aircraft structures is based on ultrasonic spectroscopy [2]. Commercially available instruments (bond testers) used for this test operate on the principle of mechanical resonance in a multi-layer structure. A piezoelectric probe shown in Figure 3b, excited by a variable frequency sine signal is placed on the surface of the inspected structure. A frequency spectrum in the range of some tens of kHz to several MHz is acquired by the instrument, see Figure 3a. 

Fig. 5.2. Principle of AFM. The sample symbolized by the circles is scanned by means of a piezoelectric translator. The piezo crystal and the oscillator is only needed for tapping mode operation.

Figure 2 shows the brief principle of a laser-detected FFM. A sample is put on a piezoelectrical tube (PZT), which scans X, Y plane and controls the feedback of Z axis. The laser beam from a diode is focused on the mirror of the free end of a cantilever with lens, and the reflected beam falls on the center of a position-sensitive detector (PSD), a four-quadrant photodiode. When the sample contacts with the tip and relatively moves under the control of a computer, the reflected beam deflects and changes the position on the PSD due to the twist and deflection of the cantilever caused by the changes of surface roughness, friction force, and adhesive force between the sample and the tip. The extension and re-... 

Fig. 2—Brief principle of a laser-detected FFM. 1, laser beam 2, cantilever 3, tip 4, Sample 5, piezoelectrical tube 6, position-sensitive detector.

The principle of operation of a quartz balance can be easily described if an AC potential is placed across a quartz piezoelectric crystal, the crystal will oscillate spatially and the amplitude of this oscillation is greatest at the resonance frequency of the crystal. This resonance frequency, /0, is a function of several parameters, including the mass of the crystal, and the mass of foreign material placed on the crystal. In fact, the change in the resonance frequency, A/0, on placing some foreign material on it is given approximately... 

J.H.T. LUONG and G.G. GUILBAULT, "Analytical applications of piezoelectric crystal biosensors", in "Biosensors Principles and Applications", M. Dekker, Inc., New York, 1991. 

If larger displacements are required, an arrangement as shown in Fig. 9.7, the bimorph, can be applied. The principle is similar to the bimetal thermometer. Two thin plates of piezoelectric material are glued together. By applying a voltage, one plate expands and the other one contracts. The composite flexes. 

A code has been written to enable the velocities of surface waves in multilayered anisotropic materials, at any orientation and propagation and including piezoelectric effects, to be calculated on a personal computer (Adler et al. 1990). The principle of the calculation is a matrix approach, somewhat along the lines of 10.2 but, because of the additional variables and boundary conditions, and because the wave velocities themselves are being found, it amounts to solving a first-order eight-dimensional vector-matrix equation. A... 

Fig. 7.64. Scheme of operation of piezoelectric drive in STM. (Reprinted with permission of Oxford University Press from C. M. A. Brett and A. M. O. Brett, Electrochemistry Principles, Methods, and Applications, Oxford University... 

The main advantage of piezoelectric devices is that, in principle, any process that results in a mass change at an interface can be measured. However, this very nonselective transduction process is also a major disadvantage in that it mandates the use of even more selective surface chemistries than are required for other types of chemical transducer systems. This will make the implementation of piezoelectric chemical sensing devices for ocean measurements rather difficult, but by no means impossible. Indeed, the coupling of pattern recognition techniques with an array of marginally selective piezoelectric transducers may, in the future, make these devices more useful for quantitative ocean measurements. 

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