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Known as piezoelectricity, the ability to trade between mechanical stress and electric charge can be harnessed widely in capacitors, actuators, transducers and sensors like accelerometers and gyroscopes for next-generation electronics.

This shaking could double a crystal’s piezoelectricity, the Japanese team reported in a 2011 patent.

The crystals show near-perfect light transmittance and ultrahigh piezoelectricity — a property associated with the coupling of electric fields and mechanical strain.

Many crystals contain defects whose concentration varies across the crystal; the resulting concentration gradient breaks the macroscopic symmetry of the crystal, causing residual piezoelectricity and pyroelectricity3.

“Same way I sent you back without me: piezoelectricity. Ever heard of that?”