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Updated: Jul 26, 2026

Characterization of Full Set Material Constants and Their Temperature Dependence for Piezoelectric Materials Using Resonant Ultrasound Spectroscopy
Published on: April 27, 2016
Observation of all the components of elastic constants using tetragonal hen egg-white lysozyme crystals dehydrated at
H Koizumi1, M Tachibana, K Kojima
1Graduate School of Integrated Science, Yokohama City University, 22-2 Seto, Kanazawa-ku, Yokohama 236-0027, Japan.
Abstract:
Success in measuring transverse sound velocity allowed us to determine, for the first time, all six elastic constants of a protein crystal. An ultrasonic pulse-echo method was used to perform sound velocity measurements on tetragonal hen egg-white (HEW) lysozyme crystals that were partially dehydrated at 42% relative humidity. The measurements were performed using the (110), (101), and (001) crystallographic faces. Thus, all six elastic constants of the dehydrated tetragonal HEW lysozyme crystals were determined: C11=C22=12.44 GPa, C12=7.03 GPa, C13=C23=8.36 GPa, C33=12.79 GPa, C44=C55=2.97 GPa, and C66=2.63 GPa. In addition, for the hydrated crystals, the longitudinal sound velocities along the [110] direction and the direction normal to the (101) face were measured. From these results, all the components of elastic constants in the hydrated crystals were extrapolated.
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