Ceramics fired, crystals grown, parts finished. One facility.
TRS formulates its own powders, sinters its own ceramics, grows its own relaxor-PT single crystals, and machines, electrodes, poles and inspects every part in State College, Pennsylvania.
- Ceramic partsto 100 mm
- Single-crystal partsto 70 mm
- Thicknessfrom 0.1 mm
- Fine tolerance±0.025 mm
Two routes to a part.
Ceramics are pressed and sintered; single crystals are grown. Both are machined, electroded, poled and inspected by the same people.
Sintering, ceramic route 
Growth, single-crystal route
Ceramic
Powder
Formulated and calcined in-house to each grade's target properties.
Pressing and sintering
To a dense microstructure: porosity below 1 % in the soft grades, yields above 90 % in the hard.
Single crystal
Growth
Relaxor-PT single crystals — PMN-PT, PIN-PMN-PT, Sm- and Mn-doped — grown in-house.
Orientation and slicing
Cut to <001> or <011> and sized as plates, discs and rings.
Both routes
Machining
Diced and lapped to drawing.
Electroding
Thick-film silver, electroless Ni/Au, or sputtered Cr/Au and NiV.
Poling
Thickness, shear or radial.
Inspection
Every part inspected against its specification, under a quality system registered to ISO 9001:2015.
Standard shapes and tolerances.
Six shapes in ceramic and in single crystal, to the ranges below; wedges, hemispheres, split rings and customer geometries to drawing.
| Shape | Dimension | Ceramic | Single crystal |
|---|---|---|---|
| Disc | Diameter (mm) | 1–75 | 5–30 |
| Thickness (mm) | 0.1–20 | 0.1–12 | |
| Rod | Diameter (mm) | 1–75 | 5–30 |
| Thickness (mm) | 0.1–20 | 0.1–12 | |
| Plate | Length (mm) | 0.25–100 | 0.25–70 |
| Width (mm) | 0.25–80 | 0.25–30 | |
| Thickness (mm) | 0.1–20 | 0.1–20 | |
| Bar | Length (mm) | 0.25–100 | 0.25–30 |
| Width (mm) | 0.25–80 | 0.25–30 | |
| Thickness (mm) | 0.1–20 | 0.1–12 | |
| Rings | Outer diameter (mm) | 2–75 | 10–30 |
| Inner diameter (mm) | 1 min. | 5 min. | |
| Thickness (mm) | 0.5–20 | 0.5–12 | |
| Tubes | Outer diameter (mm) | 2–75 | Not published |
| Inner diameter (mm) | 1 min. | Not published | |
| Thickness (mm) | 0.5–20 | Not published |
Tolerances
| Dimension | Standard | Fine |
|---|---|---|
| Diameters, lengths and widths | ±0.127 mm | ±0.025 mm |
| Thickness | ±0.05 mm | ±0.009 mm |
| Ring and tube outer diameter | ±0.127 mm | ±0.0127 mm |
Notes
- Crystal plates: the largest square is 30 × 30 mm, and plates of 70 × 12 mm are possible.
- Rings can be made as split rings; tubes can be supplied with a wrap-around electrode.
- Wedges, hemispheres and customer geometries are made to drawing.
- Common single-crystal plates and small sample quantities are held in inventory for quick delivery.
- Capability depends on aspect ratio. Size range, tolerances and metallization are tailored on request.
Disc 
Rod 
Plate 
Ring 
Tube
Electroded and poled here.
Which faces carry the electrode and which way the part is poled decide what it does.
Thickness
The part is poled through the thickness and electroded on the positive and negative surfaces. Available for all part shapes.
Shear
The polarization direction is perpendicular to the electroded surfaces. Commonly supplied as plates and rings; offers increased sensitivity and minimises the pyroelectric effect.
Radial
Offered on tubes and rings, including tubes with a wrap-around electrode.
Engineering services.
Because TRS makes the powder, the ceramic, the crystal and the part, a specification can be met at whichever level actually solves it — including a new composition.
Stacked single-crystal actuator 
Tonpilz transducer stack
Component selection
Which material, size, shape and mode suit the application, and how to optimise the part for one property — sensitivity, charge or voltage — before a drawing exists.
Custom material development
Where no catalogue grade meets the requirement, the composition is tailored from the powder onwards.
Developed this way
- TRS BT200 high-temperature ceramic
- Shock-HV material
High-strain actuator development
Single-crystal actuators: high strain, high force, high precision — and used at liquid-helium temperature.
- Working temperature from 4 K to 330 K
- Strokes up to 400 µm
- Driving field from −2 to 15 kV/cm
Constructions
- Flextensional and stacked actuators
High-performance transducer development
Tonpilz, ring and composite transducers built from TRS single crystal. What TRS demonstrated with them:
- Bandwidths up to 3 octaves
- Reduced device length by 30–60%
- Up to 50% power savings
- Improved off-resonance performance
System cost
- Fewer system electronics, because one transducer performs several functions
Single-crystal composite development
1-3 and 2-2 single-crystal composites, still development in nature; the first production 1-3 composite shipped in September 2016.
What TRS reports
- 50% more coupling than a bulk plate, for bandwidths up to 3 octaves
- Near-ideal coupling by keeping resonator dimensions optimal and clamping minimal
Capacitors
High-voltage capacitors, and dielectric materials for capacitors that operate at temperatures conventional parts cannot.
- Stable performance up to 10 kV
- Operating range from 150 °C to over 450 °C
Track record
132 SBIR and STTR awards from the Navy, Air Force, NASA and the Department of Energy sbir.gov
A seat on the IEEE P1859 working group for relaxor single crystal standards
Fifteen reprints, from fine-grained PZT to Mn-doped PIN-PMN-PT Publications
Registered to ISO 9001:2015.
Registered to ISO 9001:2015 by NSF-ISR, certificate C0111697-IS7, valid to 5 October 2027, for piezoelectric ceramic powders, finished ceramics, and crystals.
Process and product are inspected, and every part is accepted against its specification before it ships.
- ISO 9001 certificateCertificate, PDF, 502 KB
- Quality manager letter, July 2022Certificate, PDF, 357 KB
- Responsible minerals sourcing policyPolicy, Word, 16 KB
