• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.216-220
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• 2004

This paper is concerned with the development of stacked ceramic thin actuation layer IDEAL (InterDigitated Electrode Actuation Layer) using d$_{33}$ actuation mechanism of piezoelectric ceramic. Most of the thin piezoelectric actuators are operated with d$_{31}$ actuation mechanism. Many kinds of piezoelectric ceramic actuators are strived now to improve the actuation performance. One of efforts to improve performance of piezoceramic actuators is the research trying to develop an actuator using the piezoelectric coefficient d$_{33}$ . The piezoelectric coefficient d$_{33}$ is almost twice larger than piezoelectric coefficient d$_{31}$ . Therefore, the induced strain of PZT thin layer with d$_{33}$ 3 actuation mechanism is bigger than that with d$_{31}$ actuation mechanism. The AFC(MIT) and LaRC-MFC$^{TM}$ which is developed by a research team of NASA Langley Research Center used d$_{33}$ actuation mechanism with surface interdigitated electrode to enhance its actuation performance. But their actuation mechanism is not perfect d$_{33}$ actuation mechanism since the interdigitated electrodes are placed at the surface of the actuation layer. In this research, the stacked ceramic thin actuation layer with imbedded interdigitated electrode is designed and manufactured. The actuation strain of stacked ceramic thin actuation layer is measured and compared with the actuation strain of the LaRC-MFC$^{TM}$. The comparison shows that the developed stacked ceramic thin actuation layer can produce 15% more actuation strain than LaRC-MFC$^{TM}$.> TM/.