When they’re put to work in sensors, piezo materials can detect even some of the most minute disturbances and anomalies, which makes them ideal devices in industrial nondestructive testing and medical imaging. However, in other applications like sensors, the hammer as an exciter of the piezo material is typically replaced by other forms of energy like sound waves - including ultrasound. In these cases, a hammer strikes a piece of piezo material, which then produces enough current to create a spark that ignites the flammable gas in its presence. To begin with, there’s probably no more popular application of the piezoelectric effect than as a high voltage power source in electric cigarette lighters and gas grills. How the Piezoelectric Effect Works With Sensors and Motors Today, thanks to the additional development of manmade piezo materials - including piezoelectric ceramics - the applications of piezoelectricity in electronic devices are growing at an exciting pace. No piezoelectric effect explanation would be complete without a brief discussion of what piezoelectric devices are as well. The term “piezo” can even trace its roots back to ancient Greek, where its meanings relate to actions of pushing, squeezing and pressing. How Does Piezoelectric Material Work?ĭating all the way back to 1880 and the groundbreaking work of brothers Pierre and Jacques Curie, the piezoelectric effect refers to the ability of specific materials - such as quartz, tourmaline, topaz and Rochelle salt - to produce an electric charge when subjected to mechanical stress. Let’s explore how piezoelectricity works and look at some applications of piezoelectric materials in day to day life.

What do cell phones, diesel fuel injectors, acoustic guitar pickups, grill igniters, ultrasonic transducers, vibration sensors, certain printers, and musical greeting cards all have in common? Besides being electronic devices, all of these applications utilize piezoelectricity in some way.

Piezo element sensor