At present, the lighters on the market mainly use piezoelectric materials, accept large pressures, generate a large amount of charge, and then discharge to ignite the gas. When physical pressure is applied to a piezoelectric material, the electric dipole moment in the material body will be shortened due to compression, and the piezoelectric material will produce an equal amount of positive and negative charges on the opposite surface of the material to resist this change to maintain the original state.
This phenomenon of polarization due to deformation is called the "positive piezoelectric effect". Excellent piezoelectric materials can instantly accumulate a large amount of electric charge at both ends to generate high-voltage discharge to ignite the gas and realize the conversion from elastic potential energy to electrical energy.
Piezoelectric materials generate an electric charge when subjected to mechanical stress and change size when an electric field is applied to the material. These are called positive piezoelectric effects and inverse piezoelectric effects, respectively. Piezoelectric materials can be divided into the following categories: (1) single-crystal materials (e.g., quartz, which is the most widely used single-crystal piezoelectric material in nature), (2) piezoelectric ceramics, (3) piezoelectric semiconductors, (4) polymers (e.g., polyvinylidene fluoride), (5) piezoelectric composites, and (6) glass ceramics.
In addition, PZT fibers can be mixed with resins to form coarse fiber composites or PZT composites. The mechanical and piezoelectric properties of these different piezoelectric materials vary. Due to its high power generation efficiency, PZT materials have been widely used in commercial products. Increasing the stress or strain exerted on a piezoelectric material to provide more mechanical energy is one of the main ways to increase the power generation.