2. Laboratory and industrial equipment

A device producing ultrasound is commonly referred to as a transducer (figure 3 ). Transducer technology is currently based on electrical generators. The properties of piezoelectric materials are used to convert electrical energy into ultrasonic mechanical energy. Piezoelectric transducers use the inverse piezoelectric effect of natural or synthetic single crystals (such as quartz) or ceramics made of barium titanate or lead titano-zirconate (PZT) with the chemical formula Pb(Zr _x Ti _1-x )O ₃ , which are highly piezoelectric and easily machinable. They most often take the form of a disk, plate or ring, to the faces of which two metallized electrodes are attached....