A pyroelectric infrared sensor detects a pyroelectric current caused by the temperature rise of a Pb(Zr_x, Ti_1-x)O₃ (PZT) film due to irradiation of infrared rays. However, the temperature rise of PZT is suppressed when heat is transferred from an electrode of the sensor, and the sensitivity is lowered. For reducing the thermal conductivity of electrodes, a SrRuO₃ (SRO) film was used as the electrode of the PZT film. Pt/Ti multilayer films were formed on the SRO film to prevent the PZT film from being dissolved by wet etching. The film thickness of Pt was 10 and 50 nm, and the film thickness of Ti was 0, 2, and 30 nm. In the case that the PZT film was formed on the 10 nm Pt/SRO film, the average grain diameter of this PZT film was 1 µm, and the crystal orientation was random. Also, the residual polarization (2P_r) was approximately 37 µC/cm², and the pyroelectric coefficient was approximately 400 µCK^-1m^-2.

This paper reports an evaluation of microtubules gliding characteristics on surface roughness structures, which were fabricated on polyimide films by reactive ion etching. Surface roughness was increased with increase of etching time, and the maximum surface roughness was approximately 116 nm at 20 min etching time. In the comparison of gliding velocities on the fabricated films and on glass substrate, there was significant difference at the surface roughness of over 82 nm. Over 70% of microtubules stopped on the fabricated films with the surface roughness of over 42 nm. These results showed that the surface roughness structure influences the characteristics of microtubules gliding, and it could be useful for a trapping-structure in gliding assay.

Localized surface plasmons in sub-nanometer gaps defined by metal nanoparticle dimer has recently attracted attention as a high-sensitivity sensor with a small volume. We demonstrated multiple gap plasmons by a single silver nanowire with a spacer layer on silver film i.e., nanowire on mirror (NWoM) in the dark-field with polarization-dependent.

This paper reports a 2-axis in-plane resonator driven by a single piezoelectric actuator for a speckle dissolution device used in a laser-type projector. A PZT (lead zirconate titanate) unimorph actuator combined with a Moonie type displacement amplifier and 2-axis resonance structure was used to obtain large displacement. Both axes have different resonance frequencies (387.76 Hz and 323.34 Hz) and thus can be independently controlled by the single resonator with these frequencies superposed. The maximum displacement as high as 50 µm for both x- and y- directions was obtained. The proposed driving method can reduce the device size to about a half of the previously reported device with 2 actuators.