Design, Fabrication and Test of Piezoelectric Actuator Using U-Shape PZT Strips and Lever Structure for Lateral Stroke Amplification

We present lateral actuated piezoelectric actuator using U-shaped PZT strip and lever structure for the RF switch application. In the previous study of RF switch, they used horizontal contact switch fabricated by thin film metals. However, thin film metals could not generate large contact force due to low stiffness. In this work, we suggest lateral contact switch which makes large contact force by increasing stiffness. In addition, we use PZT actuator for the high force actuation. Generally actuator using thin film PZT moves to the vertical direction due to the neutral axis shift. Therefore we need lateral motion generation mechanism based on the thin film PZT actuator. In order to increase lateral motion of thin film PZT actuator, we use U-shaped PZT actuator using residual stress control. Also, thin film PZT actuator can generate very small lateral motion of 120${\times}$10$^{-6}$ ${\mu}{\textrm}{m}$/V for d$_{31}$ mode, thus we suggest lever structure to increase stroke amplification. From the experimental study, fabricated PZT actuator shows maximum lateral displacement of 1 ${\mu}{\textrm}{m}$, and break down voltage of the thin film PZT actuator is above 16V.

수평방향 변위증폭을 위해 U-형상의 PZT 스트립과 지렛대 구조를 이용한 압전구동형 액추에이터의 설계, 제작 및 실험