Piezoelectric lead-zirconate-titanate actuator films for microelectromechanical systems applications

Abstract

Piezoelectric actuators are particularly advantageous for MEMS because of their high stored energy density compared to electrostatic and thermal actuators. Lead-zirconate-titanate PbZr,Til -,03 (PZT) films would be very useful as microactuators due to their superior piezoelectric properties. We have previously reported stoichiometric, perovskite-structured thin films of PZT, suitable for microactuator applications, fabricated with composite target magnetron sputtering. These films are under investigation for several applications, including a natural gas flowmeter, and wavelength tunable electro-optic devices. In this work, we describe two experimental results regarding the processing of these films: (1) a decrease in anneal time from 18 hours to 5 s using rapid thermal annealing, and (2) sputter deposition of piezoelectric films of PZT on GaAs substrates.