Electromechanical performance of piezoelectric actuators in inkjet print head

The displacement performance of piezoelectrically actuated inkjet print head in a bending mode was investigated with the numerical and experimental analysis. The bending actuator membrane with a multi-layered structure, including piezoelectric, elastic and support layers was fabricated by MEMS processing. The displacement of the actuator membrane reaches a maximum at a relative width ratio of PZT to support layer in the range from 0.6 to 0.8, depending on their thickness ratio. The fabricated actuator membrane exhibited its maximum displacement of 0.098 um/V, which agreed well with simulation results, i.e., 0.089 um/V.