Design and fabrication of a D33-mode piezoelectric micro-accelerometer

Abstract

In this paper, a D33-mode piezoelectric micro-accelerometer with Pb1.1(Zr0.52Ti0.48)O3(PZT) thin film is designed, fabricated and tested. Both the polarization and deformation directions of the piezoelectric thin film are horizontal in this structure. With the high sensitivity and natural frequency, the D33-mode piezoelectric micro-accelerometer possesses improved practicality. The influence of filling factor (Γ) and interdigital electrode width (b) on the output voltage is analyzed in this work. The micro-electro-mechanical systems technology is then used to fabricate the piezoelectric accelerometer device, which is based on the Sol–Gel PZT piezoelectric thin film. Performance of the piezoelectric accelerometer micro-devices with the different Γ and b is tested on the vibration table. The experimental results show that the sensitivity of D33-mode piezoelectric accelerometer is inversely to the filling factor and interdigital electrode width. The piezoelectric accelerometer with a filling factor of 0.5 and an interdigital electrode width of 5 μm can generate an output voltage of 149.83 mV.