Single crystal piezoelectric motor operating with both inertia and ultrasonic resonance drives

Abstract

This study presents a novel piezoelectric motor based on a single crystal material with orthorhombic mm2 symmetry class, in which piezoelectric coupling coefficients in sign and magnitude at transverse directions are different, implying that the value of d32 is positive whilst d31 is negative. The single crystal piezoceramic plate in the shape of a truncated rhombus has three conducting electrodes. While two active electrodes dividing one main surface into two equal sections, the common electrode covers the other main surface uniformly. When a signal is applied between one of the active and the common electrodes, the excited section expands and contracts with a larger magnitude. The expansion and shrinkage on one side causes an oblique movement of the side surface, on which a friction tip is attached. The oblique movement is then transferred to a moving element through frictional coupling. The proposed piezoelectric motor design is simpler and less susceptible to manufacturing tolerances as it does not rely on dimensional aspect ratios to couple two eigenmodes to get a useful movement at the friction tip of the stator. The motor can be operated both inertia (stick–slip) and resonance drive principals. In the case of sawtooth voltage excitation, the smallest motion steps are in the range of 100 nm. Using the ultrasonic excitation of both single source and dual source dual frequency resonance (DSDFR) drives, the piezoelectric motor reached a maximum no load velocity higher than 220 mm/s, and a push–pull force capacity of 2.5 N.