Temperature Dependence of Piezoelectric Properties of Sputtered Aluminum Nitride on Silicon Substrate

Abstract

We report for the first time the temperature dependence of the piezoelectric coefficient d₃₃ of the aluminum nitride (AlN) film measured at temperatures up to 300 °C. A highly c-axis oriented AlN film was successfully deposited on a polycrystalline silicon / silicon dioxide / silicon wafer by a reactive sputtering technique to form a piezoelectric uni-morph actuator. A scanning laser Doppler vibrometer was used to measure the picometer level displacement of the actuator at 20 kHz at different temperatures. The piezoelectric coefficient d₃₃ has a constant value of 5 pC/N at temperatures ranging between 20 °C and 300 °C.