Miniaturized domain engineered multilayer actuators

PMN/PT 67/33 <100> single crystals were evaluated under high drive conditions from ambient to 80°C for miniaturized multilayer actuator (MLA) applications. Multilayer actuators were fabricated under identical processing conditions using two different materials: (1) single crystal PMN/PT (SCPMN) and (2) hot-pressed PZT-5A. Five layer SCPMN actuators with individual element sizes of 3 mm×3 mm×0.25 mm have measured displacements on the order of 3 μm at 20 kV/cm unipolar field. While superior strain behavior was observed for the PMN/PT single crystals at ambient, at higher operating temperatures (50°C to 80°C), the performance declined. Insights into both device performance and the different physics governing normal ferroelectric and domain engineered materials with temperature were obtained by two techniques: (1) high field ac impedance analysis (0.6 to 8 kV/cm ac) and (2) analysis of dielectric transformation behavior with hydrostatic pressure (0 to 2 GPa)