Co-firing of PZT–PMS–PZN/Ag Multilayer Actuator Prepared by Tape-Casting Method

Multilayer ceramic actuator composed of piezoelectrically active 0.90Pb(Zr0.48Ti0.52)O3–0.05Pb(Mn1/3Sb2/3)O3–0.05Pb(Zn1/3Nb2/3)O3 (PZT–PMS–PZN) layers and electrically conducting silver metal layers were fabricated. Low-temperature sinterable PZT–PMS–PZN ceramics were used as the piezoelectric layers, and silver paste was used as the conductive inner-electrode layers. PZT–PMS–PZN powder, adding 1% CuO as a sintering agent, was prepared by a conventional solid-state reaction process. The green sheet was fabricated by tape-casting method. Silver inner-electrode was printed on the green-tape sheets and the sheets were stacked, warm-pressed, and sintered at 900°C for 4 h after burning out the organic additions. The sintered multilayer ceramics actuator shows distinct layers with few defects in the interfaces. The thicknesses of the piezoelectric and conducting layers are about 40 and 6 μm, respectively. The multilayer PZT–PMS–PZN actuator, composed of 60 active piezoelectric layers, presents a longitudinal displacement of about 2.7 μm at an applied voltage of 80 V, approximately 0.1% of the total thickness of itself.