Coulomb force on a line charge in an anisotropic piezoelectric bimaterial.

We employ the Stroh octet formalism to develop a real-form expression of the Coulomb force acting on a line charge in an anisotropic piezoelectric bimaterial. The Coulomb force is derived using two different approaches and is expressed in terms of the generalized Barnett–Lothe tensors for the two piezoelectric half-spaces. Interestingly, we find that the Coulomb force is independent of the orientation of the bimaterial interface provided that the interface is parallel to the x 3 -axis and the distance between the charge and the interface remains unchanged. The Coulomb force on a line charge in a piezoelectric half-space with a rigid conducting surface or a traction-free insulating surface is deduced from the Coulomb force for two jointed piezoelectric half-spaces. In the case of a rigid conducting surface, we find that the Coulomb force always tends to attract the line charge to the surface. This is in contract to the case of a traction-free insulating surface for which we find that the Coulomb force can be either repulsive or attractive due to the piezoelectric effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]