Properties and application of jet printed piezoelectric PZT film for actuation purposes

Although piezoelectric thin films are of great interest for actuator application in MEMS, deposition of PZT films with thickness between 5 and 100 /spl mu/m has been hardly possible. It is therefore the goal of this paper, to investigate the properties of PZT-films of this thickness deposited by the recently introduced jet printing system, especially concerning an application in microactuator devices. On basic functional elements (beams, membranes) PZT-layers of 10 to 50 /spl mu/m thickness were deposited, and their relative dielectric constant determined between 20 and 550. For the first time the piezoelectric constant of the jet printed PZT-layer was calculated to 20...30/spl middot/10/sup -12/ C/N from laser measurements of beam deflection, and therefore piezoelectric actuation capability could be proved directly.