<title>Multilayered piezoceramic microactuators formed by milling in the green state</title>

Abstract

Methods for the fabrication of piezoceramic microactuators that will be used in a miniaturized robot have been investigated. Multilayered structures for piezoceramic microactuators are usually fabricated by tape casting and lamination. The present structures are fabricated with a wet building process where thin layers of ceramic slurry and screen-printed electrodes are cast sequentially. The use of multilayered structures reduces the drive voltage to common levels for integrated circuits, but also result in difficulties forming complicated shapes. Dicing is a straightforward alternative to achieve a simple geometry, but it can not machine e.g. a hollow cylindrical structure. There are several methods that could be used, but only few that would be cost-efficient for large-scale production. One of these is milling with modern high-precision CNC machine tools. Conventional milling of sintered ceramic components would result in many problems since the material is rather brittle and cracks are easily formed. Cracks are detrimental to the mechanical properties as well as for the electrical properties. Milling in the ceramic green state appears to be a promising method, since microcracks does not arise. The relatively soft green body puts great demands on the milling process. A high speed of the spindle is necessary to achieve low cutting forces since sub-millimeter cutting tools are used. The paper present result from different milling test and discusses how the machining parameters affect the resulting shape. The resolution is comparable with other techniques and it can be concluded that it is sufficient for normal screen-printed multilayered components. The evaluation of resulting deformation of the material after milling and sintering is presented.© (1999) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.