Temperature dependence of piezoelectric properties of sputtered AlN on silicon substrate

We report for the first time the temperature dependence of the piezoelectric coefficient d33 of the aluminum nitride (AlN) film measured at temperatures up to 300 °C. A highly c-axis oriented AlN film was successfully deposited on a polycrystalline silicon/silicon dioxide/silicon wafer by a reactive sputtering technique to form a piezoelectric uni-morph actuator. A scanning laser Doppler vibrometer was used to measure the picometer level displacement of the actuator at 20 kHz at different temperatures. The piezoelectric coefficient d33 has a constant value at temperatures ranging between 20 °C and 300 °C.