PhD student of MMRC in our university - Wenfeng Liu, and her supervisor - Prof. Ren have succeeded in developing the world's first environment-friendly, high performance lead (Pb)-free piezoelectric material. This work has been published in Physical Review Letters. It is the first time that a Pb-free piezoelectric material outperforms the "king of piezoelectrics", the toxic Pb-containing piezoelectric material PZT (lead zirconate titanate), which has been widely used for 50 years. Furthermore, they also proposed a theory of high performance Pb-free piezoelectric materials, which has the potential to contribute to the discovery of other Pb-free piezoelectric materials with even higher piezoelectricity. This work may initiate the worldwide shift from the toxic Pb-containing piezoelectric materials to environmental-friendly ones.

¡¡This important discovery has brought about a big impact on both scientific community and industry, as well as the public media. Many public media (newspapers, websites, TV news, etc.) have reported the news and many companies have contacted them to seek further information or possible collaboration. Very recently, Philip Ball, the editor of Nature has written an article entitled "Stealing a lead on lead" (Nature Materials, 9(2010), 98), sayingthe newly discovered may "help these smart materials become smarter still".it is also highlighted in Highlights of Nature Asia-pacific in March, 2009, saying "This study opens up a new approach to designing high-performance, non-toxic piezoelectrics". Besides, many of the mainstream media and websites published this exciting discovery.