Electrical Charateristics of Step-down Piezoelectric Transformer

In this paper, we have explained electrical characteristics of a step-down Rosen type piezoelectric transformer for AC-adapter. When the electric voltage is applied to the driving piezoelectric vibrator polarized in the longitudinal direction, then output voltage is generated at the generating piezoelectric vibrator polarized in the thickness direction due to the piezoelectric effects. From the piezoelectric direct and converse effects, symbolic expressions between the electric inputs and outputs of the step-down piezoelectric transformer have derived with an equivalent circuit model. With the symbolic expressions, load and frequency characteristics have discussed through simulation. Output voltage and current from a 11-layered and a 13-layered piezoelectric transformers were measured under the various conditions of loads and frequencies. First we measured resonant frequency from impedance curve and got equivalent impedance value of the piezoelectric transformer from admittance plot. It was shown from experiments that output voltage has increased and resonant frequency has changed according to various resistor loads. Output current has decreased inversely proportional to changing of loads. Moreover, the measured values of output voltage and current are well agreed with the simulated values of the proposed equivalent circuit model.