Characteristics of Piezoelectric Multilayer Devices Containing Metal-Oxide Multicomponent Electrode

The objective of this study is to investigate sintering behavior of silver/palladium electrode powders with TiO 2 nano-particle addition and their matching characteristics to a piezoelectric ceramics, Pb(Zr, Ti)O 3 . The electro-mechanical properties of the piezoelectric multilayer devices with the silver-TiO 2 particle electrode was studied. The densification of the electrodes was investigated as a function of sintering temperature and the reaction between the ceramic matrix and electrodes was studied by employing mechanical bonding test and scanning electron microscopy. The densification of the nanoparticle TiO 2 -added electrode paste followed the TiO 2 solid state diffusion-controlled mechanism upon sintering process. Reaction between ceramic and electrode layers with the TiO 2 nano-particle powder allows internal stress to be reduced and mechanical bonding strength to be increased. High adhesive strength and good electrical conductivity of more than 10 4 /Ω cm could be obtained in the multilayer ferroelectric structure being in form of stacking ceramics layer and electrode layer containing the nano-particles. In order to understand the effectiveness of the nano-TiO 2 doped electrode for multilayer device, the multilayer ceramic actuators containing Ag-based electrode with nano-sized TiO 2 powder were fabricated and evaluated each other. Both the samples exhibited similar piezoelectric and dielectric properties.