ABSTRACT This paper presents a novel, large-deflection piezoelectric folded cantilever microactuator (PFCM). A multimorph model for the large-deflection PFCM is derived, in which unified formulas for deflection angle and vertical displacement of N-level PFCM are obtained. Based on the model, multilayer PFCMs using PZT film are designed and optimized. The large-deflection PFCM is extensively applicable to micro-devices or microsystem applications such as micro-optical switches, microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) scanners, and so forth.
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