Lost Silicon Mold Process for PZT Microstructures

Lead zirconate titanate (PZT) is an excellent piezoelectric actuator,however, its usefulness has been limited by its requirement for a high driving voltage. Here is described a novel silicon mold process that uses a combination of Si micromachining and ceramic sintering. The process yields many-layer PZT structures (giving larger actuator forces) with very thin plates (allowing the actuator to be driven with a lower voltage), intercalated by Si electrodes. These ceramic microstructures possess finer feature sizes and higher aspect ratios.