We study, on an atomic scale, the influence of a single dislocation in a SrTiO3 sublayer on the local ferroelectric polarization of the neighboring ferroelectric PbZr0.2Ti0.8O3 (PZT) sublayer in an epitaxial SrTiO3/PbZr0.2Ti0.8O3/SrTiO3 three-layer heterostructure. The strain field of the dislocation in the SrTiO3 layer propagates across the interface into the PZT layer and leads to a strong va...

This paper reports on conception, simulation, and fabrication of a lead zirconate titanate (PZT) MEMS cantilevers for piezoelectric energy harvesting (EH). We investigate the advantages of interdigitated electrode configurations (IDE) with respect to parallel-plate electrodes (PPE) in terms of output voltage and output power from the constitutive equations of piezoelectricity. Finite element mo...

Lead Zirconate Titanate, PZT, layered into a composite with different materials, produces pre-stressed, curved, devices capable of enhanced displacement. This study focuses on Thunder and Lipca which are built using different combinations of constituent materials. Thunder devices consist of layers of aluminum, PZT, and stainless steel bonded with a hot-melt adhesive. Lipca devices consist of ca...

In this paper, we present a Solar Energy harvesting and storing system. The solar energy is converted to electric charge by photosensitizing film and the charge generated is stored between the upper membrane and lower membrane of a capacitor. A PZT material based capacitor is used to retain the charge. The proposed system not only harvest energy from solar sources but also stores the charge bot...

Flexible piezoelectric PZT/fabric composite material is pliable and tough in nature which is in a lack of traditional PZT patches. It has great application prospect in improving the sensitivity of sensor/actuator made by piezoelectric materials especially when they are used for curved surfaces or complicated conditions. In this paper, glass fiber cloth was adopted as carrier to grow PZT piezoel...

We report on the first successful operation of a cyclic contact scanning force microscope ~SFM! using a self-excited cantilever in liquid. Based on a new structure including a PZT reference pattern and a free-standing PZT cantilever, the piezoelectric self-excitation and self-detection mechanism for a PZT microcantilever was developed successfully. The topography is recorded by measuring the pi...

Utilizing plasmonic nanostructures for efficient and flexible conversion of solar energy into electricity or fuel presents a new paradigm in photovoltaics and photoelectrochemistry research. In a conventional photoelectrochemical cell, consisting of a plasmonic structure in contact with a semiconductor, the type of photoelectrochemical reaction is determined by the band bending at the semicondu...