Coupled Semianalytical and FEM Modeling of Polymer Piezoelectric Material With Interdigitated Electrodes

The piezoelectric polymers are increasingly considered as favorable materials for microelectromechanical systems due to their fast response, low operating voltages, and greater efficiencies of operation. However, the difficulty of forming structures and shapes has so far limited the range of electromechanical design. The possibility of using interdigitated electrodes (IDEs) to improve the transverse actuation of polymer film is modeled. A semianalytical model based on application of the conformal mapping methods is used to determine the electrostatic field in such configuration. A coupling with a finite-element modeling allows to obtain the piezoelectric strain field. The effect of the IDEs geometry on the developed strain was modeled. The results present simple coherent guidelines for the optimization of IDE patterns deposited onto surfaces of polyvinylidene fluoride films.