Production of piezoelectric cantilever using MEMS-based layered manufacturing technology

Abstract

Piezoelectric cantilever is widely preferred in many fields due to its small size, simple and perfect design, easy control process, easy integration with integrated circuits. The tip displacement is the most important character of piezoelectric cantilever and many models have been used for characterization. These models are only suitable for piezoelectric cantilever structures of the same length and layer thickness. In this study, a new model is proposed to estimate the tip displacement of a micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) based piezoelectric cantilever with layers of different lengths and thicknesses. Modeling was carried out in COMSOL Multiphysics software in 3D format with reference to the bimorph structure. The fabrication of the piezoelectric cantilever was made by Stereolithography (SLA), which is one of the additive manufacturing methods. Theoretical, simulated and real-time experiments were carried out to measure the tip displacement of the piezoelectric cantilever. An electrical characterization experiment was set up to measure tip displacement under constant voltage of the cantilever in real-time experiments. This setup includes an optical microscope and digital camera to observe displacements in the probe station. As a result of the characterization, it was found that the cantilever produced a maximum 14.98 µm tip displacement of 900 µm length, 225 µm width and 40 µm thickness under 10 V voltage. In addition, it has been determined that the tip displacement of the piezoelectric cantilever is directly proportional to the length and inversely proportional to the layer thickness. The results show that the model is in good agreement with the finite element method (FEM) simulation, theoretical and experimental measurements.