Texture-control of lead zirconate titanate films for actuator applications

A combination of the preparation technique for ferroelectric films such as lead zirconate titanate (PZT) and the micromachining of Si is considered to be an effective way to fabricate piezoelectric microdevices like microactuators called a microelectromechanical system (MEMS). However, the amount of the displacement and force of PZT thin films is not sufficient in some applications of microactuators. To achieve the property of large displacement, increase of the film thickness or improvement of the piezoelectric property is required. One of the techniques to improve the ferroelectric and piezoelectric properties is assumed to be the arrangement of the polarization direction using a texture control process. We successfully preparaed the (100) and (111) dominant oriented Pb(Zr1-xTix)O3 thin films using a chemical solution deposition (CSD) process. On the other hand, an arc-discharged reactive ion-plating (ADRIP) method is one of the candidates to fabricate the thick PZT films because of high deposition rate such as 3 μm/h. In this work, the texture-controlled PZT thin and thick films deposited onto Pt/Ti/SiO2/Si substrates were prepared using CSD or ADRIP process for actuator applications. In the case of ADRIP process, (100) and (111) dominant oriented PZT thick films was formed onto CSD derived and texture controlled PZT thin film layer.