Piezoelectric Transducer Inventions in the Last Two Decades

In the 21 century, piezoelectric transducers continually play important roles on new technology developments. There are many new requirements for revelational piezoelectric transducers. In order to address those new requirements, my collaborators and I invented several new piezoelectric transduction devices, which increased one order or more energy densities. Those inventions include the polymer ceramic hybrid transducer, hybrid piezoelectric energy harvesting/actuation transduction systems, hybrid piezoelectric synthetic actuators [9–11], multistage force/displacement amplification piezoelectric harvester/transducers, and high-power-density piezoelectric energy harvesting transduction system. In this review, the background and motivations of those inventions will be briefly introduced, and the work principles of the highlighted inventions will be explained, and the impact on increase orders of magnitude energy densities of those piezoelectric transduction devices will be summarized. The advantages performance and potential applications of those invented devices will be briefly discussed