Characterization of thick film piezoelectric lead zirconate titanate (PZT) ceramics fabricated by tape casting processing

Microstructures and electrical properties of PZT thick films fabricated by using a tape casting processing have been studied. The PZT thick film elements sintered at 1250-1300 °C. The PZT thick film obtained shows a uniform grain size and very dense microstructure with minimal pores and better than most of the screen-printed film reported before. A piezoelectric constant d31 of about -181pm/V was derived from the measurement of a unimorph actuator (23μm PZT/110μm stainless steel foil), which was very close the measurement results of thicker films. This proves that PZT films can be fabricated down to tens of micrometer with similar piezoelectric coefficients to bulk ceramics. The characterization results show tape-casting processing can be used to fabricate high quality PZT thick film resonators, and the extracted material constants can be used for sensor, actuator and transducer design.