Electromechanical Behavior of Microbeams with Piezoelectric and Electrostatic Actuation

In this paper we present an analysis of a novel microelectromechanical (MEM) cantilever switch that incorporates piezoelectric layers bonded to the microbeam. We have developed a model of a microbeam that can be actuated by applying voltage to the electrostatic areas and piezoelectric layers. The nonlinear governing equations have been derived and linearized using a step-by-step linearization method and the linear system of equations has been solved by means of the generalized differential quadrature method. The results for a simple micro cantilever MEM switch are in good agreement with other simulation results and demonstrate the feasibility of the concept and the effectiveness of the proposed numerical methods. The numerical results show that the proposed model can be actuated electrostatically and piezoelectrically in three different types of actuation sequences, and we show that, as expected, the switching voltages can be reduced due to the high equivalent piezoelectric coefficient.