This week we highlight a database of piezoelectric properties, published by researchers at UC-Berkeley and LBNL.
Piezoelectric materials allow coupling of electrical fields and mechanical strain. This occurs when the crystal lattice is disturbed, causing a charge imbalance which results in a voltage across the material. Piezoelectrics are used in a number of applications in industries such as the automotive, computer, and medical fields.
This data set contains piezoelectrics moduli and tensors for 941 materials. These were calculated use first-principles calculations based on density functional pertubation theory, and were compared to experimental data to establish accuracy. Previously, the number of compounds with measured piezoelectric tensors was very limited.