American physicist and electrical engineer Dr. Walter Guyton Cady (1874–1974) was, during his lifetime, described as the “Father of Modern Piezoelectricity”.

In current mobile devices, there is a sophisticated circuitry that is responsible for converting information from the near-zero frequency baseband signals used to convey information and data to radio-signals that can be received or transmitted over the air.

Let us provide you with a very simple definition first to get things clear. Certain materials tend to accumulate electric charges when a mechanical stress is applied to it. The piezoelectric effect is an effect that simply describes the fact that a pressure applied to a piezoelectric material will generate a voltage.

In this article we discuss how to pole piezoelectric materials in OnScale and walk through an example of how to rotate the material properties of Lithium Tantalate for the Y-cut angle in an LT-SAW.

In 1880 brothers Pierre Curie and Jacques Curie were working as laboratory assistants at the Faculty of Sciences of Paris. They discovered that applying pressure to crystals such as quartz, tourmaline and Rochelle salt generates electrical charges on the surface of these materials. This conversion of mechanical energy into electrical energy is called the direct piezoelectric effect. “Piezo” is derived from the Greek for “to press”.

In Part 1 of this Blog Tutorial we provided a more theoretical example of piezoelectric equations and the important coefficients to know.

Obtaining the correct piezoelectric material properties from a manufacturer datasheet and transforming those properties into the correct format for simulation can be a hassle.

We had the chance to interview OnScale Founder and UK Director, Andrew Tweedie to discuss what brought him to FEA Simulation. In this blog post Andrew shares a fascinating insight into how Finite Element Analysis (FEA) simulation can benefit in designing systems that we would never have dreamt possible, however has played a big role in shaping the engineering world we have today. Andrew, can you tell us about your background in engineering and FEA Simulation?

In our previous two blog posts, How Ultrasonic Fingerprint Sensing Works and Why it is Important and Which transducer type is best for ultrasonic fingerprint sensing: CMUT, PMUT or PZT?, we explained the fingerprint sensing principles and the different ultrasound transducers. Micromachined ultrasound transducers (MUTs) can be fabricated in a small size in an array suitable for relatively large frequency applications compared to bulk piezoelectric transducers, and are then suitable to perform beamforming to generate ultrasound images. Piezoelectric micromachined ultrasonic transducers (PMUTs) are a better candidate for fingerprint sensing compared to CMUTs, though there is no need for DC bias voltage for both Tx and Rx operation. In fact, PMUTs AC only working regime reduces the charging effect in the dielectric/piezo improving the reliability of the device.

In this article we discuss Genetic Algorithm (GA) optimization for a Solid Mounted Resonator (SMR) design using OnScale Command Line Interface (CLI) and MATLAB Optimization Toolbox.