Dual Piezoelectric Actuation Bridge of In-Plane Polarized Lead Zirconate Titanate Film

Abstract

A dual piezoelectric actuation bridge of in-plane polarized lead zirconate titanate (PZT) film is demonstrated. The in-plane polarized PZT film makes the development of a bending mechanism in the d(33) mode, which exhibits a strain performance twice that of the d(31) mode. Further, this design can provide deflection exceeding the structure thickness and individual driving mechanism for improving reliability of the devices. In order to simplify the fabrication process, a photoresist and An are selected for the sacrificial and Structural materials, respectively. The PZT thin film, which is deposited on the Au structural layer by the RF magnetron sputtering method, is poled and driven with interdigitated electrodes (IDEs) in order to exploit d(33) mode actuation. The fabricated actuator exhibits good performance with a fast response time of <500 ms and low driving voltage of 5 V. This design can also be applied for a linearly tunable capacitor, depending on the magnitude of biasing voltage.