Picoscale precision though ultrathin film piezoelectricity
Piezoelectricity (aka the piezoelectric effect) occurs within certain materials – crystals (notably quartz), some ceramics, bone, DNA, and a number of proteins – when the application of mechanical stress or vibration generates electric charge or alternating current (AC) voltage, respectively. (Conversely, piezoelectric materials can vibrate when AC voltage is applied to them.) The piezoelectric effect has a significant range of uses, including sound production and detection, generation of high voltages and electronic frequencies, atomic resolution imaging technologies (e.g., scanning tunneling and atomic force microscopy), and actuators for highly accurate positioning of nanoscale objects – the last being crucial for fundamental research and industrial applications. That being said, subatomic scale positioning still presents a number of challenge. Recently, however, researchers at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Suzhou, and Duke University, Durham demonstrated vertical piezoelectricity at the atomic scale (three to five space lattices) using ultrathin cadmium sulfide (CdS)...
