Smart Materials & Nanotechnology

Piezoelectric Materials and 3-D Printing

Piezoelectric materials are smart materials which accumulate electric charge across the material surface upon mechanical stress and this charge can change the shape of the material. Some of these materials are ceramic, quartz, quantum dots, etc. These electronic materials are used as sensors and actuators in the automotive industries. Rapid prototyping, 3dimensional (3D) printing or additive manufacturing (AM) of smart materials like smart nano composites, shape memory alloys, ceramics, shape memory polymers, actuators  for soft robotics, self-evolving structures, anti-counterfeiting system has been going on and 4D printing has also come into picture to include the structural reconfiguration of materials over time.