Process Developed to 3D Print Piezoelectric Materials

The piezoelectric materials that inhabit everything from our cell phones to musical greeting cards may be getting an upgrade thanks to work discussed in the journal Nature Materials. Xiaoyu “Rayne” Zheng, assistant professor of mechanical engineering in the College of Engineering and a member of the Macromolecules Innovation Institute, and his team have developed methods to 3D print piezoelectric materials that can be custom designed to convert movement, impact, and stress from any directions to electrical energy.