Ceramic piezoelectric transducers

A major part of the effort has been concerned with the development of new techniques for the fabrication of diphasic ceramic and ceramic plastic composites and with investigation of the manner in which local and macroscopic symmetry and phase interconnection (connectivity) controls the coupled elasto-electric (piezoelectric) and thermo-elasto-electric (pyroelectric) properties of the composite. Replicating a natural microstructure of desired connectivity, a new type of flexible ceramic elastometer composite has been developed which exhibits g sub 33 constants over an order of magnitude larger than PZT and has interesting potential for many passive voltage generation applications such as in hydrophones and towed arrays.