How does quartz produce a charge when a force is applied?

[Turner_8t8]

I'm doing a presentation on the physical properties of quartz for my Physics a-level and mostly on its piezoelectric properties but I am having trouble finding out exactly it produces a charge when a force is applied upon it. Any help anyone could give me would be greatly appreciated, also any other useful information about quartz especially any numerrical data would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Matt

 

[CarlB]

Try looking in a textbook on mineralogy. It turns out that only crystals that lack certain symmetries are piezoelectric. A reasonable mineralogy textbook will discuss it.

And your post really belongs over in the homework section.

Carl

 

[FredGarvin]

Endevco has some great research on accelerometers that use of piezoelectric effect. Here is a basic overview paper. I think it can help. Let me know if the link doesn't get you directly to it. Their site requires a registration.

http://64.106.253.12/PDFs/technical-papers/TP244.pdf