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Last updated on May 22, 2013 at 17:39 EDT

Latest Dragan Damjanovic Stories

2010-09-14 22:08:44

Piezoelectric materials have fantastic properties: squeeze them and they generate an electrical field. And vice-versa, they contract or expand when jolted with an electrical pulse. With a name derived from the Greek word meaning to squeeze or press, the piezoelectric effect was just a curiosity after it was discovered in several crystals in 1880. But in 1917, a quartz piezoelectric crystal was at the heart of the world's first submarine-detecting sonar.Piezoelectric materials really took off...