The goal of this study is to develop a fast, controllable PZT-driven depth adjustment device with a flexure hinge. The device can be used to trace rapidly a flat or curved surface with several hundreds of micrometers’ variance in height. The lever type flexure hinge designed for a magnification ratio of 10 and no other axes motion has been confirmed through FEM analysis; the actual performance has been verified through static/dynamic experiments. A micro-depth control system, which is comprised of a DAQ with a LabVIEW, PZT amplifier, PZT actuator, flexure hinge, and laser displacement sensor, is implemented, and its static/dynamic characteristics of depth control is investigated with a PID gain tuned control algorithm on LabVIEW. It has been verified that the developed device can trace a micro-depth command as fast as 0.5 s to get an accurate position of 0.1 μm, even under a load of 1 N.

The aim of this paper is the development of a PZT-driven apparatus for testing the force-deflection behavior of thin 0.1/0.5-㎜-thick plates. Thin plates are widely used as the diaphragm of pressure sensors, as they are much stronger than the thin films with thicknesses of up to several tens of ? that are used in MEMS applications. Therefore, a proper PZT actuator should be selected to acquire the static- and dynamic-material properties of these thin plates to perform testing in terms of the force and frequency responses. Based on the investigation of the PZT characteristics, a test apparatus is developed. It is verified for the Hastelloy C-276 that the static-force deflection, acquired through sample testing, is compatible with the theoretical one; moreover, the dynamic test is available up to approximately 20 ㎐.