Fabrication and characterisation of piezoelectric thick-film microcantilever deposited on stainless steel using electrohydrodynamic jet deposition

Abstract This paper presents a lead zirconate titanate (PZT) thick-film microcantilever fabricated on a stainless-steel substrate using electrohydrodynamic jet (E-jet) deposition. PZT thick-film functional layer arrays were produced directly on stainless-steel substrates via E-jet deposition to form microcantilevers with a width of only 150 μm and thickness of 62 μm. The method can realise batch manufacturing of microscale cantilevers, improve the PZT active layer energy and microcantilever fracture toughness under vibrational deformation, and eliminate the need for complex photolithography and etching processes. The microcantilever accurately realised the correct mode shapes, consistent with simulation results. The vibrational amplitude of the microcantilever reached 5.14 μm, while Qm was up to 688.1, considerably larger than those of thick-film silicon-based microcantilevers and free-standing microcantilevers with similar sizes. An effective electromechanical coupling coefficient, Keff, of approximately 0.13 was obtained. The potential for efficient applications in microelectromechanical system piezoelectric devices was confirmed.