Piezoelectric Actuators and Their Applications

Abstract

Piezoelectric actuators (PEAs) are a type of microactuators which mainly use the inverse piezoelectric effect to produce small displacement at high speed by applying voltage. This chapter includes the detailed discussion on piezoelectric actuators in the direction of industrial benefits. In addition, the classification of piezoelectric actuators is made. Especially, the piezoelectric actuators showed the MEMS (microelectromechanical systems) applications at larger extent. We elaborated different piezoelectric materials such as lead and lead zirconium-based compounds for actuator applications. In view of this, few parameters like memory, domain rotation, etc., are considered for justifying the actuator applications. The importance of these actuators towards robotics is also elucidated.