Lighter

Lighter we use everyday many times to ignite the gas burner. But we never taught how it's working,  lets us know today.

Working mechanism

The gas lighter consists of a piezo-electric crystal over which a spring loaded hammer is placed. The hammer and spring set up is attached to button. when button is pressed , the hammer is moved away from the piezo-electric crystal. The spring releases the hammer which hits a crystal of PZT ( Piezoelectric ceramic material ) or Quartz crystal.  

Quartz is piezoelectric,which means it creates a high voltage . due to high voltage air is ionized and acts as a path for the discharge resulting a spark, which when exposed to gas and air mix it produces flame. 

Lighter

what is piezoelectric effect

piezoelectric effect is the ability of some piezoelectric material to generate an electrical charge in feedback to the mechanical stress.

piezoelectric effect is reversible ,which means when we apply mechanical stress to the piezoelectric material we receive some electrical charge on output, and when we apply electricity to the piezoelectric material , then it compress the piezoelectric material.

Piezoelectric application 

Many application we can see using piezoelectric effect like,

• Musical greeting card.
• We can generate electricity by using piezoelectric device placing on stairs,  as humans walks mechanical energy is converted into electrical energy. The energy generated here can be used for charging 40mAh button cell battery for 1 hour .

Piezoelectric effect has many uses in our day-to-day life, like when we workout in gym mechanical energy which is release can be used to convert into electricity .

medical application it's used in ultrasonic Imaging.