Piezoelectric characteristics of PVA/DL-alanine polycrystals in d33 mode

Buil Jeon; Dongsoo Han; Giwan Yoon

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2022.105768

Piezoelectric characteristics of PVA/DL-alanine polycrystals in d₃₃ mode

iScience. 2022 Dec 8;26(1):105768. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2022.105768. eCollection 2023 Jan 20.

Authors

Buil Jeon¹, Dongsoo Han², Giwan Yoon¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Electrical Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, 291 Daehak-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon 34141, South Korea.
² School of Computing, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, 291 Daehak-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon 34141, South Korea.

Abstract

In this study, polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)-mixed DL-alanine (PVA/DL-alanine) polycrystals are fabricated, and their piezoelectric characteristics in the d₃₃ mode are investigated. The d₃₃ piezoelectric coefficients of the PVA/DL-alanine polycrystals are found to increase with an increase in the weight ratio of DL-alanine, and the PVA/DL-alanine polycrystal composed of PVA and DL-alanine in a weight ratio of 1:3 exhibits a d₃₃ of ∼5 pC/N. The piezoelectric characteristics of the PVA/DL-alanine polycrystals are discussed in terms of the crystal structure by employing scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction analyses. To confirm the piezoelectric performance of the polycrystals, the piezoelectric voltages of a piezoelectric device composed of a single layer of ZnO thin film and heterostructured devices consisting of a layer of PVA/DL-alanine polycrystal and a ZnO thin film layer are measured and compared. This study presents PVA/DL-alanine polycrystals as a potential piezoelectric material for bio-friendly piezoelectric-device applications.

Keywords: Electrical property; Materials characterization techniques; Mechanical property.