However, if you can make all of the crystals in the ceramic point in the same direction you can begin to bring the response of crystals vs ceramics closer to one another. There are a couple ways to do this, such as templated grain growth which I’ll talk about in the next post!

This atomic pattern is also why materials have different properties, such as piezoelectricity. In a piezoelectric single crystal the uniform atomic pattern means the response is uniform in one direction, while the randomly oriented patterns in a ceramic cause interference with one another.

The difference between a single crystal and a ceramic comes down to overall crystal structure, the pattern atoms are arranged in. In a single crystal the pattern repeats unbroken in the entire crystal. In contrast, a ceramic is made of lots of tiny, randomly oriented crystals fused together.

What the heck is a piezoelectric you may ask? I’m so glad you did. Piezoelectrics are why we have things like ultrasounds, fish finders, and those really annoying buzzers in clothes dryers. They’re a class of material that can interchange bending into electricity and vice versa.