Piezoelectric polymers: theory, challenges and opportunities

Abstract

Piezoelectric materials can directly transduce electrical and mechanical energy, making them attractive for applications such as sensors, actuators and energy harvesting devices. While often associated with ceramic materials, piezoelectric behaviour is also observed in many polymers. The flexibility, ease of processing and biocompatibility of piezoelectric polymers mean that they are often preferable for certain applications, despite their lower piezoelectric coefficients. This review will cover some theoretical and practical concepts of piezoelectricity in polymers, such as the symmetry requirements, the underlying mechanism and the necessary materials processing. A brief review of the applications of piezoelectric polymers is also presented. One of the main motivations of this review is to discuss the challenges and open questions in the field in an effort to highlight potential future research directions.

Effects of Solvent and Electrospinning Parameters on the Morphology and Piezoelectric Properties of PVDF Nanofibrous Membrane

“…To clearly observe the difference of curves and simply explain the calculation of the β-phase fraction (F(β)), only the FTIR spectra of M7 and M10 are presented in Figure 6A. F(β) can be calculated using the Beer-Lambert Equation (2).…”

“…Piezoelectric materials, which are extensively used in energy harvesting and sensors, have attracted much attention recently [ 1 , 2 ]. In brief, piezoelectric material can convert external mechanical strain into electric energy and vice-versa.…”

Bio-piezoelectricity: fundamentals and applications in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine

“…Piezoelectricity, also called pressing electricity or the piezoelectric effect, is an unusual property of some dielectric materials that leads them to respond to mechanical stimulus by creating an electrical charge (Fig. 1 ) (Smith and Kar-Narayan 2022 ; Arnau and Soares 2009 ). This process is reversible, which means that the materials can be induced to mechanically deform (leading to a change in their dimensions) by applying an electric field (Ciofani and Menciassi 2012 ).…”

Integrated Sensing and Acoustofluidic Functions for Flexible Thin Film Acoustic Wave Devices Based on Metallic and Polymer Multilayers

“…They have been used for sensing and microfluidics with similar performance to their rigid counterparts. However, there are still challenges for thin film flexible acoustic wave devices on either metal substrates (deformability/wrinkling of thin metallic layers after multiple use) or polymer (significant wave damping and reduced efficiency for acoustofluidics) [33], [34].…”