Nano-electromechanical systems based on a piezoelectric single crystalline thin film on Silicon

Nano-electromechanical systems (NEMS) have shown great progress and promise as sensors and actuators. In spite of great progress, efficiency and integration techniques for actuating and tuning NEMS has remained a challenge. We have employed a single crystalline piezoelectric thin film on a silicon substrate to obtain a high piezoelectric coefficient and high electromechanical coupling for a NEMS device. The suspended NEMS device consists of Pt/Pb(Mg$_{x}$Nb$_{1-x})$-PbTiO$_{3}$/SrRuO$_{3}$/SiTiO$_{3}$ and is clamped at the ends via silicon substrate. Pt and SrRuO$_{3}$ are used as top and bottom electrodes, respectively, and SiTiO3 serves as a buffer layer to the silicon substrate. We have shown experimentally that the piezoelectric actuation based on PMN-PT devices consume less power and are more responsive than other NEMS devices of similar nature and size.