Deflection characteristics of a trapezoidal multilayer in-plane sending piezoelectric actuator

A novel multilayer split-morph actuator has been designed and fabricated us ing the thick film screen-printing technology. Deflection characteristics o f the splitmorph actuator have been investigated by theoretical analysis an d experimental measurement. The results indicate that the tip displacement is inversely proportional to the thickness of each piezoelectric layer, but is independent of the number of layers and the total thickness of the actu ator. The displacement/voltage sensitivity of the trapezoidal actuator is l arger than that of the rectangular design, assuming both have the same widt h of clamped end and the same thickness of the piezoelectric layers. The ma ximum displacement/voltage sensitivity of 0.157 mum/V was obtained with a s plit-morph actuator with 30-mum thick layers. The proposed actuator is a pr omising candidate for the secondary fine-tuning actuator of a dual stage he ad-positioning servo system in high density hard disk drives.