New Piezoelectric Oxide Materials P. Shiv Halasyamani (Univ New Piezoelectric Oxide Materials P. Shiv Halasyamani (Univ. Houston), 47345-AC10 PRF Piezoelectric materials have the unique property of converting electrical energy to mechanical energy as well as mechanical energy to electrical energy. Piezoelectric materials also have strict symmetry requirements – they must be crystallographically non-centrosymmetric and ideally polar. New polar oxides may be synthesized by utilizing cations susceptible to second-order Jahn-Teller (SOJT) distortions. These cations are d0 transition metals (Ti4+, Nb5+, W6+, etc.) and lone-pair cations (Se4+, Te4+, Tl+, etc.). Using this methodology, we have synthesized and characterized a variety of new polar oxides, including KNbW2O9, RbNbW2O9, and TlNbW2O9.