Investigation on influence factors of opto-electrostatic hybrid driving torsion actuator based on PLZT ceramic

Highlights: • Established a new mathematical model of the opto-electrostatic torsion actuator. • Studied the influence of different factors on driving performance of the actuator. • Provided a practical application of opto-electrostatic hybrid driving method. PLZT (lanthanum-doped lead zirconate titanate) ceramic has obtained widespread applications in the engineering fields. Especially, it has broad application prospects in driving field. In this article, aiming at the proposed opto-electrostatic hybrid driving torsion actuator, the influence of different factors on driving voltage and output deformation is analyzed and verified by a new mathematical model and a variety of experiments. According to the analysis and experimental results, different PLZT ceramics with different sizes can produce different driving voltage and deformation of the actuator. And as the length of the torsion beam increases or the width of the torsion beam decreases, the deformation increases while the driving voltage remains the same. The driving performance is better when the copper foil attached to the right end of the upper electrode. Moreover, when the area of copper foil decreases or the distance between electrodes increases, the driving voltage increases while the change of deformation is determined by driving voltage, area and distance between electrodes. Therefore, the analysis of the influence factors can not only explore their influence on driving performance, but also provide a theoretical basis for the practical application of opto-electrostatic hybrid driving torsion actuator based on PLZT ceramic.