Piezoelectric ceramics are indispensable to our way of life. Their ability to transform electrical energy into mechanical energy (and vice versa) makes these materials useful in many sectors and industrial applications.

These materials track their origin to the year 1880,¹ when the phenomenon of piezoelectricity was first discovered by two French brothers, Jacques and Pierre Curie, in crystals of Rochelle salt and quartz (Figure 1). Later, the Curies discovered that electrical fields can result in dimensional changes in piezoelectric materials, an interaction termed the “inverse piezoelectric effect.”