Piezoelectricity and nano-materials

Isaacsname

My apologies in advance for ignorant questions.

Are there any nanomaterials that exhibit piezoelectric properties ? Can they be engineered to take energy from surface waves at interfacial boundries ? I only ask after seeing the recent article on piezielectric vibration " harvesters " on the Physorg fron page lead me to wonder why this technology has not been shrunk further ? Or is it such a small amount of energy in most cases it's overlooked ?

Is there still plenty of room at the bottom ?

kaelibw

yes there are. i do not know of all of them but the one i know best is Polyvinylidene Fluoride (PVDF). I have been experimenting with the stuff for quite a while but need some more info before i get the stuff to work. but from what i have read, it produces the biggest dielectric properties of almost all the other types of piezoelectric materials.