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Piezoelectrics—materials that can change mechanical stress
to electricity and back again—are everywhere in modern life. Computer hard
drives. Loud speakers. Medical ultrasound. Sonar. Though piezoelectrics are a
widely used technology, there are major gaps in our understanding of how they
work. Now researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology
(NIST) and Canada's Simon Fraser University believe they've learned why one of
the main classes of these materials, known as relaxors, behaves in distinctly
different ways from the rest and exhibit the largest piezoelectric effect. And
the discovery comes in the shape of a butterfly.*