CONTRIBUTION TO OPTICAL ACTUATOR - STUDY ON OPTICAL SERVOSYSTEM

This paper deals with a new concept of an optical servosystem and pres ents an experimental analysis on photostrictive ceramics for use as an optical actuator in the optical servosystem. The optical servosystem proposed here is characterized by introduction of an optical actuator into the system. PLZT ceramics is used as an optical actuator which is directly driven by light irradiation. The photostrictive effect in th e PLZT ceramics produced from the superposition of the photovoltaic ef fect and the piezoelectric effect is experimentally evaluated from the viewpoint of its applicability to an optical actuator. The experiment al results show that the PLZT ceramics generates a mechanical strain a s large as conventional PZT ceramics but at a very slow dynamic respon se of about 40 seconds. The slow dynamic response is attributed to the time lag in the photovoltaic effect.