Micro fabrication of thick and bulk PZT materials for piezoelectric actuator

Piezoelectric materials are attractive for sensor and actuator in micro device applications, because they have the good properties capable for actuation or sensing. Recently, the piezoelectric thin film with silicon process has been widely researched in MEMS. Moreover, the bulk piezoelectric materials are being worked for accurate actuator positioner and fast actuation system. However, the microfabrication of piezoelectric materials for these applications is difficult because of ceramic materials with low etching rate. In this study, the sol-gel derived PZT thick film was etched by wet etching method. Also we fabricated the PZT film cantilever structure by the lift-off method. The silicon mold method was used for the fabrication of micro multi-layer PZT actuator. In silicon mold method, silicon wafer was etched by deep dry etching method and the etched holes in silicon wafer was filled with the PZT powder. The structure having PZT power in the silicon holes was condensed using the hot isostatic pressing(HIP) sintering method for micro multi-layer PZT/silicon actuator.