Piezoresistive effects in ytterbium stress transducers

Abstract

Ytterbium has been successfully used as the piezoresistive element in stress transducers for in situ measurements of stress amplitudes associated with wave propagation in rocks and soils and for laboratory studies of high‐rate loading effects in solids and liquids. Ytterbium has been calibrated over its useful range and it can be seen that consideration of the tensor aspects of the piezoresistance become important below 10 kbar. We have used static tensile and hydrostatic data to determine the piezoresistivity tensor coefficients and estimate the shock‐wave piezoresistance coefficient, which compares well with experiment. In addition, we offer an explanation of the difference observed between hydrostatic and shock‐wave data in the region where plastic deformation becomes important during dynamic compression.