How do piezoelectric crystals work in guitars?
In: Technology
Piezoelectric crystals commonly have a perovskite structure. It is a crystal structure that looks like a cubic cage with usually a small atom at the center. As the atom in the middle is positively charge and the cage is mostly negatively charge, any deviation from the cubic symmetry would cause a dipole moment (think of it like static electricity, positive charges attract negative charges). So, if you disturb the crystal by means of stretching, compressing, hitting, vibrating, etc, you’ll get a voltage. That voltage does work. In the case of piezoelectric pick up, the voltage follows the vibration of the string which creates a sound signal.
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