Seen especially in Rochelle salts and quartz, FTP, what is this effect in which certain non-conducting crystals exhibit a potential difference across opposite faces when exposed to mechanical stress?
In the 1940s barium titanate was discovered to exhibit this effect strongly when exposed to high temperatures. Originally a laboratory curiosity, it was first exploited in WWI when its converse version was used in an early form of sonar. Seen in crystals lacking a center of structural symmetry, such as tourmaline, it has come to be used in phonograph pickups and microphones after its 1880 discovery by Paul-Jacques and Pierre Curie. Seen especially in Rochelle salts and quartz, FTP, what is this effect in which certain non-conducting crystals exhibit a potential difference across opposite faces when exposed to mechanical stress?
In the 1940s barium titanate was discovered to exhibit this effect strongly when exposed to high temperatures.
piezoelectricity or piezoelectric effect