Limitation of the degradation effect in piezoelectric multilayer actuators with ceramic layer thickness below 50 μm

During the cofiring of PZT actuators, interactions between electrodes and ceramics occur that induce a degradation in the large signal piezoelectric properties for ceramic layer thicknesses below 50 μm. It has been shown that the clamping forces applied to the ceramics due to thermal mismatch between the electrode and the ceramics are responsible for the reduction in the large signal piezocoefficient d₃₃ A shift in the ratio of electrode/ceramic layer thickness proved to be the best method to reduce the clamping forces applied to the ceramics. Consequently, an increase in d₃₃ of 50% could be achieved for samples with a 17 μm ceramic layer thickness.