Piezoelectric materials vs. SMA
Piezoelectric materials are crystalline materials that generate a voltage at the both ends when pressure is applied to them to deform the surface; the most important characteristic is the piezoelectric effect, including the piezoelectric effect and the inverse piezoelectric effect.
Piezoelectric effect refers to the application of a force to the piezoelectric material for deforming the surface of the piezoelectric material, thus forming charges at both ends of the piezoelectric material. The inverse piezoelectric effect means that when an electric field is applied to the piezoelectric material, the piezoelectric material will generate mechanical deformation or movement in a certain direction, and when the applied electric field is removed, the deformation also disappears.
The shape memory alloy (SMA for short) is an alloy material that can completely eliminate the deformation at a lower temperature after heating, and recover its original shape before deformation, that is, an alloy with a "memory".
Piezo driver vs. SMA driver
The Piezo driver has a built-in waveform generator that can generate different waveforms, such as sine wave, square wave, triangle wave, etc., depending on the applications. The difference in the frequency and amplitude of these waveforms controls the deformation difference of the piezoelectric material.
The SMA driver changes or recovers the shape of the SMA by changing temperature, cooling or heating.
ATI's Piezo driver module can efficiently drive large piezoelectric materials at high speed and efficiency, which can be called truly high efficiency Piezo driver.
Optimization of Piezo Driving System and SMA Driving System
Piezo driving system has fast response, good frequency response, and small displacement, so it features high precision.
The driving capability and displacement of the SMA driving system are large, but the response speed is slow.
Therefore, the Piezo driving system and the SMA driving system are suitable for different engineering applications. At present, the SMA filaments and films with fast response speeds have been used for preliminary engineering applications. Piezoelectric ceramics with piezoelectric coefficient one order of magnitude larger than conventional piezoelectric materials have also been developed in the laboratory. And the combination of piezoelectric materials with SMA is also under study.
Find more technical data of piezo driver: http://www.analogtechnologies.com/High_Efficiency_Pizeo_Driver.html
