Production and characterization of rainbow piezoelectric actuators. Advantages from other traditional devices.

A new actuator called RAINBOW is presently intensively studied because of t he extremely large displacement that it is able to generate. The aim of the present work is to fully characterize the performances of this kind of act uator in terms of voltage, frequency and temperature dependence of both max imum displacement and force generated. These results will be compared with the performances shown in the literature fur some other traditional piezoel ectric actuators. The present work explores two types of compositions for R AINBOWS fabrication: electrostrictive based on PLZT and ferroelectric PZT-b ased. Results show that this actuator can be engineered upon their thicknes s to optimize the performances. Maximum displacement and generated force in crease in a rate of 7446 10(-12) mV and 2.9 N/kV, respectively, per mm of i ncrease of disk diameter. The chan ge with frequency of these properties al ong 0.01Hz to 500Hz range keeps within 20% fur maximum displacement and 10% for blocking force. Thermal stability of the performances shows an unexpec ted 50% of variation through the studied range from -40 degrees C up to 50 degrees C.