Heat generation in PZT MEMS actuator arrays

Piezoelectric microelectromechanical systems (piezoMEMS) enable dense arrays of actuators which are often driven to higher electrical fields than their bulk piezoelectric counterparts. In ceramics, high field driving causes internal heating the piezoelectric, largely due field-induced domain wall motion. Self-heating is then tracked as a function vibration velocity determine upper bound for drive levels. However, literature limited concerning self-heating in thin film piezoMEMS. this work, it shown that piezoMEMS transducer occurs motion and Ohmic losses. This was demonstrated via systematic study waveform dependence arrays. particular, magnitude quantified different parameters (e.g., amplitude, DC offset, frequency). Thermal modeling using measured hysteresis loss from characterization heat source found be excellent agreement with experimental data. The model allows improved thermal design can, furthermore, utilized functional heating, especially device level poling.