Abstract
The paper presents the possibility of a low-voltage micro-switch for RF application. The switches, we fabricated, consist of micro-cantilevers using piezoelectric PZT thin films with the length of 300μm and the width of 50μm. The cantilevers are actuated as unimorph actuators that can be deflected by applying voltage between upper and lower electrodes. We could obtain large deflection of 4.3μm even at the low voltage of 6.0V, which is well compatible with conventional IC drivers. This result indicates that the RF-MEMS switch using piezoelectric PZT thin films is much advantageous to the low voltage switching devices compared with conventionally proposed electrostatic ones.
