Investigation on piezoelectric lead zirconate titanate detector bombarded obliquely with hypervelocity iron particles

A cosmic dust detector for use onboard a satellite is currently being constructed from piezoelectric lead zirconate titanate (PZT). The characteristics of the PZT detector were studied by bombarding it with hypervelocity iron particles, which were supplied by a Van de Graaff accelerator. There was a linear relationship between the rise time of the signal observed from the detector and the particle's velocity, which was above 10 km/s on impact. It was also found that the rise time was almost independent of the collisional angle between the particles and the PZT surface within the limits of the particle's parameters used in this experiment.