A team of university researchers, aided by scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), have succeeded in integrating a new, highly efficient piezoelectric material into a silicon microelectromechanical system (MEMS). This development could lead to significant advances in sensing, imaging, and energy harvesting.

A piezoelectric material, such as quartz, expands slightly when fed electricity and conversely, generates an electric charge when squeezed. Quartz watches take advantage of this property to keep time: electricity from the watch’s battery causes a piece of quartz to expand and contract inside a small chamber at a specific frequency that circuitry in the watch translates into time.

Piezoelectric materials are also in sensors in sonar and ultrasound systems, which use the same principle in reverse to translate sound waves into images of, among other things, fish under the water and fetuses in utero.

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