Fabrication of piezoelectrically driven micro-cantilever using Pb(Zr, Ti)O/sub 3/ films

Piezoelectrically driven micro-cantilevers using Pb(Zr, Ti)O/sub 3/ (PZT) films have been successfully fabricated by bulk micro-machining. PZT thin films were made by sol-gel process using a 1-3 propanediol and modified alkoxide precursors. The cantilever structures consist of piezoelectric PZT capacitors fabricated on a low stress SiN/sub x/ supporting layer. Flat micro-cantilever has been obtained by controlling the stress in Pt electrode and PZT layers. The dielectric constant and loss of the PZT thin films in the cantilever structure were 1000 and 2% at 100 kHz, respectively. The remanent polarization was 20 /spl mu/C/cm/sup 2/. The microcantilever had a dc response of 84 nm/V. The microcantilevers had a resonant frequency of 19.5 kHz and the corresponding displacement of 2.97 /spl mu/m at the applied bias of 1 V.