Basic investigations on a piezoelectric bending actuator for micro-electro-mechanical applications

This article deals with basic investigations into the development and manuf acturing process of a piezoelectric animated micro actuator. The concept of the fabrication of a piezoelectric microactuator will be introduced and fi rst fundamental investigations on materials characterization and process te chnology for the Pt bottom electrode and piezoelectric PZT layer will be pr esented. PZT thin film have been deposited with the chemical solution depos ition (CSD) technique and have been characterized with dielectric and ferro electric measurements. For optimization of actuator properties an analytica l approach and a simulation with finite element method was carried out. Thi s shows that the cantilever must have a length above 300 mum to reach a rip deflection higher than 10 mum at voltages comparable to those used in inte grated circuits (IC). Additionally, stress measurements of each layer have been used to characterize the films mechanically.