High strain piezoelectric multilayer actuators - A material science and engineering challenge

Piezoelectric actuators are at an important stage of their development into a large component market. This market pull is for dynamically driven actuators for Diesel injector valves in automobiles. Cost, yield, and reliability are important concerns for the automobile industry. A number of these concerns relate back to basic material science issues in the manufacture of the piezoelectric actuators. This paper discusses material development of the piezoelectric ceramic and new opportunities for higher temperature materials. An important consideration in developing low-fire ceramics is the flux selection for a given system, and these must be selected to limit electrode-ceramic interface reactions in both Ag/Pd and copper-metallized electrode actuators.