Piezoelectric nanotransducers

Piezoelectricity has already found a multitude of applications, including voltage generation, quartz oscillators, mechanical sensors and actuators, piezoelectric transformers and more. However, in the last years, intense research efforts worldwide are demonstrating that nanoscale piezoelectricity can offer outstanding advantages in comparison with conventional piezoelectrics. Nevertheless, so far, no systematic analysis of these advantages and of the associated challenges has been reported. Here, we critically review 16 unique advantages of piezoelectricity at nanoscale and also consider some of the most important open challenges, together with promising general strategies to address them. Our analysis confirms that nanotechnology can open the way to piezoelectric transducers with unprecedented performance for several applications, including mechanical energy harvesting, piezotronics, piezophototronics, implantable systems, wireless piezoelectric nanotransducers, and more.