Driving Characteristics of a Surface Acoustic Wave Motor using a Flat-Plane Slider

We discuss the use of a flat-plane slider for a surface acoustic wave (SAW) motor. For stable driving, the SAW motor requires a silicon slider with many microprojections on its surface. Previously, sliders with no projections on the flat-plane surface could not provide stable drive because of contact electrification occurring due to the low electrical conductivity of the lithium niobate stator. In this paper, we present a flatplane slider that can provide stable drive by using for the stator lithium niobate with conductivity improved by chemical reduction. The flat-plane slider can drive under a higher preload than a slider with projections because the contact area of the flat-plane slider is larger than that of the slider with projections. Thus, the flat-plane slider is expected to obtain a higher output force than the slider with projections. We report herein the results of measurements of the flat-plane slider driving characteristics such as the no-load speed and output force. The SAW motor with our proposed flat-plane slider achieves a high output force of 18 N and a no-load speed of 0.9 m/s. © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden and The Robotics Society of Japan, 2010