The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Sep. 21, 2010
Filed:
Dec. 18, 2003
Nicholas P. R. Hill, Cambridge, GB;
Nicholas P. R. Hill, Cambridge, GB;
3M Innovative Properties Company, Saint Paul, MN (US);
Abstract
The present invention provides a piezoelectric transducer that includes at least two poled piezoelectric regions disposed in a side-by-side arrangement and connected in series with the poling directions reversed through the series connection, meaning that the 'north pole' of one region is connected to the 'south pole' of an adjacent region. The at least two regions can be within the same piece of piezoelectric material, or can be separate pieces of piezoelectric material. Transducers of the present invention may be particularly suited to detecting vibrations such as bending waves in a plate. For example, transducers of the present invention may be affixed to a surface of a plate and used to detect vibrations caused by or affected by touches to the plate to determine information related to the touches, such a touch position.