Improved piezoelectric actuators for use in high-speed pulsed valves.

We describe the assembly of piezoelectric actuators suitable for use in Proch-Trickl pulsed gas valves employed in pulsed molecular beam experiments. In their simplest form, these actuators have performance equal to and resistance to chemical attack far superior to the recently discontinued commercial actuator around which the valve was originally designed. New actuators have been designed employing several different dual piezo configurations. The dual piezo design reliably produces shorter pulses than the original actuator, resulting in reduced gas consumption and lower average source chamber pressures for a given backing pressure and pulse rate. By electrically isolating the actuator assembly, active adjustment of the closed position may be achieved by simple addition of a continuous voltage bias.