5. Piezoelectric coefficients
In most of the structures applied in MEMS, the piezoelectric film is part of a composite structure, i.e. the piezoelectric film is clamped to another elastic body. A rigorous treatment of this problem requires the solution of the equations of state with two piezoelectric and several elastic coefficients. The latter are, however, usually not known precisely. A more pragmatic way is to consider effective piezoelectric coefficients of films clamped to a rigid substrate. d33,f describes the thickness change as a function of the applied field, i.e. the longitudinal effect; e31,f is the in-plane stress as a function of the applied field, i.e. the transverse effect. The film is clamped in the film plane (coordinates 1,2). In the offplane direction (coordinate 3), the film is free to move
Figure 11. The CO2 absorption spectrum measured by means of a thin-film pyroelectric array (from [76]). (From bottom curve, 350 ppm to top curve, 31 ppm.) (This figure is in colour only in the electronic version, see www.iop.org)
Figure 12. Schematic description of the geometry and the working principle of the piezoelectric film applied in actuators and sensors.
figure 12). This corresponds to a mixed boundary condition. The directly measured piezoelectric coefficients of thin films on substrates are therefore functions of standard piezoelectric coefficients and elastic constants. These effective coefficients are related to the ordinary coefficients by the following relations [68, 77]:
e31,f is determined either by substrate bending (variation of x1 and x2 at σ3 = 0 and E3 = 0) and collecting the developed charges that are related to the in-plane strains as
or by applying a field and measuring the deflection of the substrate which is governed by the in-plane stresses
Note that e31,f is always larger than the bulk coefficient e31.
This originates from the fact that larger piezoelectric stresses can be developed in the transverse directions if the sample is free to move in the longitudinal direction. Most of the potential applications are based on the transverse coefficient e31,f . Bending of beams and
Table 1. Various figures of merit for the different materials. The PZT thin-film data are evaluated for 1 μm thick sol-gel films
[81–83]. The AlN data are from [84] and the bulk ceramics data are for typical PZT ceramics [85].
deflections of membranes are much more suited principles for obtaining large responses or large excursions. For this reason, this coefficient is discussed in more detail below. In terms of piezoelectric coefficients, PZT is clearly the leader among the above materials. This translates into a superior performance in force, torque, and output power of actuators and motors, and also of sensors with current detection. This fact is revealed by the difference in speed per voltage of an ultrasonic micromotor, i.e. AlN stator and PZT stator (figure 6). The motor speed is proportional to the vibration amplitude, which is proportional to the piezoelectric bending moment, i.e. proportional to e31,fU. However, when voltages are detected, when the dielectric noise current limits the signal-to-noise ratio, and when the coupling coefficient is important (power consumption, power yield and transducer response), the dielectric constant and the dielectric losses also have to be considered. In these cases, PZT is no longer so brilliant because of its high dielectric constant. AlN and ZnO are more suited for voltage detection (see table 1). The coupling coefficient in thin-film composite structures needs to be considered in a different way than in homogeneous bulk materials. The stiffness of the structure usually depends more on the passive part, i.e. silicon, thermal oxide, silicon nitride, etc, than on the PZT itself. On silicon structures, the optimal coupling coefficients are obtained for a thickness of the passive layers that is somewhat larger than the PZT thickness [78, 79]. This means that one should rather consider the compliance of the substrate than the one of PZT. In analogy with the planar coupling coefficient kp, the following material figure of merit for the coupling factor is therefore considered:
The data given in table 1 show that the texture of the PZT thin films is quite important for the piezoelectric properties. PZT(100) films yield much superior properties as compared to the (111)-textured films and approach those of optimized, i.e. doped, PZT ceramics. In fact, PZT(100) films yield better results than the undopedPZTas published by Berlincourt et a
Figure 13. The calculated coupling factor and resonance frequency, as a function of silicon thickness, for a round disk of silicon covered by a layer stack, including 1 μm of PZT (e31,f = 6 C m−2), as discussed in the text (the calculations base on the analytical model given in [8]). The calculations are shown for a stress-free and a tensile stressed layer stack.l
in 1960 [80], which yield a e31,f of −9.6 C m−2. The same table also shows the values for the frequently used ZnO and the semiconductor compatible AlN. Replacement of these materials by the optimized PZT thin film allows a gain of factor 12 in force, and factor two in coupling coefficient k2p,f . In thin-film structures, the coupling coefficient not only depends on the material parameters, but film stresses also play a role. Film stresses are hardly avoidable. In spite of efforts to reduce or to compensate for such stresses, there will be a residual value between 10–100 MPa. Such stresses give a pre-strain, or a pre-curvature to micromechanical structures.
Poling of PZT thin films may lead to a change of the residual stress in PZT thin films. In some cases, this stress has to be taken into account in the design phase of the device. In very thin membranes, tensile stresses increase the resonance frequency and reduce the coupling coefficient, as illustrated in figure 13 for a PZT/Si3N4/SiO2/Si structure. In this case, the stress of the 200 nm thick nitride was compensated for by the stress of the 650 nm thick SiO2 (originally used for pyroelectric detectors [72]). In thin-film diaphragms subjected to tensile stress, a transition from disk behavior (resonance frequencies depend on the rigidity of the plate) to membrane behavior (resonance frequencies depend on the stretching forces) is observed when thinning down the diaphragm [68].
6. Operation of piezo-electric thin films, poling,
and reliability issues
PZT bulk ceramics and PZT thin films differ in two major properties: thin films exhibit much higher coercive fields (typically 50–100 kV cm−1) and higher breakdown voltages (200–400 kV cm−1). It is therefore possible to drive thin-film actuators with higher fields in order to compensate partially for the smaller thickness. Depolarization takes place when the operation field is too large compared to the coercive field. A dc field superimposed on the ac field helps in this case to maintain a good polarization. This is well seen in
figure 6, where the motor speed is very much increased by a bias of only 2 V. Operation with unipolar fields (as,
e.g., E(1 + sin ωt)) yield stable operating performance and also proved to be applicable during longer tests (100 h, see [65, 86]). For some applications, such a dc bias might be an undesirable technical complication. In such cases it is favorable to select a Ti-rich PZT composition with a larger coercive field. When choosing Ti-rich compositions, poling becomes an issue for piezoelectric as well as pyroelectric applications [87, 88]. The very Ti-rich films require hot poling. Films nearer to the morphotropic phase boundary may be poled also with UV-light assistance [89]. Poling is not yet understood in its whole complexity. It is related to a phenomenon that
is presently intensively studied for memory applications: imprint. Charge injection, defect dipole alignment, and
defect migration are involved in building-up internal fields.
A further important point of performance is stability during operation and with time. Depolarization (fatigue)
may occur and, if integration is not mastered, delamination of the PZT film or the electrodes may occur. From an
industrial point of view, the evaluation of ageing and fatigue is certainly an important task. However, only a few studies have been reported so far. The motor described above was subjected to a test lasting 100 h with a unipolar ac field of 20 kHz. Apart of a slight increase of the revolution speed, no deterioration was observed [86]. The same test was performed with a stator alone while measuring the vibration amplitude. A5–10% decrease of the amplitudewas observed [86]. Most likely this was due to depolarization. Some of the deposition methods yield films exhibiting an internal field that gives preference for one direction of polarization. When the film is poled in this preferential direction, the piezoelectric properties are more stable with time than when poled on the opposite direction [90]. With unipolar operation, or operation below the switching threshold, three different processes can
be identified in fatiguing. The first is depolarization by 180◦ domain back switching; which should be completely
reversible and avoidable with a superimposed dc field. The second mechanism is based on elastic domains such as 90◦ domains. The walls of such domains may migrate in order to reduce the mechanical stresses built up during poling. This process might also affect polarization, but should be mainly reversible. The third category includes irreversible phenomena such as delamination and cracking. On search of delamination—which was not found—the second type of processes was recently evidenced by high-resolution x-ray diffraction of the silicon interface region of a Si(100) cantilever coated with PZT/Pt/TiO2/SiO2. After poling the PZT thin film, a broadening of the Si(400) reflection was found. This broadening disappeared during a fatigue test with a unipolar ac field of 100 kV
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