Property of Lead Zirconate Titanate Actuator Manufactured with Microwave Sintering Process

In this study, the application of a 28 GHz microwave sintering process was attempted for the sintering of lead zirconate titanate (PZT) materials and sintering conditions were thoroughly investigated. Microwave sintering offers advantages over conventional technologies, such as repression of grain growth due to rapid heating, and improvement of microstructure due to internal heating. As a result, the sintering time of PZT materials using a 28 GHz microwave was reduced to 1/10 of the time needed for the conventional process, with improvement of material properties such as the electromechanical coupling factor and dielectric constant. Moreover, the performance of actuators fabricated by the microwave sintering process was evaluated in a vibration test and compared with the performance of actuators fabricated using conventional technology; the performance superiority was confirmed.