Book excerpt: This book presents a comprehensive review of the most important methods used in the characterisation of piezoelectric, ferroelectric and pyroelectric materials. It covers techniques for the analysis of bulk materials and thick and thin film materials and devices. There is a growing demand by industry to adapt and integrate piezoelectric materials into ever smaller devices and structures. Such applications development requires the joint development of reliable, robust, accurate and – most importantly – relevant and applicable measurement and characterisation methods and models. In the past few years there has been a rapid development of new techniques to model and measure the variety of properties that are deemed important for applications development engineers and scientists. The book has been written by the leaders in the field and many chapters represent established measurement best practice, with a strong emphasis on application of the methods via worked examples and detailed experimental procedural descriptions. Each chapter contains numerous diagrams, images, and measurement data, all of which are fully referenced and indexed. The book is intended to occupy space in the research or technical lab, and will be a valuable and practical resource for students, materials scientists, engineers, and lab technicians.