Amplified Piezoelectric Actuators

PI’s high-displacement series of motion amplified piezoelectric actuators integrate a low voltage, multi-layer piezoceramic stack in a flexure guided housing assembly. The flexure provides guiding, preload, and doubles as a motion amplifier. It also protects the ceramic stack and simplifies mounting as well as attaching the object to be moved to the part of the motion output. PI amplified piezo actuators provide high force, high stiffness, speed, and precision. They integrate the patented PICMA® piezo actuators that ran 100 Billion cycles in NASA tests before they were sent off to Mars.   

Closed-Loop Control Option: Closed-loop position control is possible with a piezo servo controller based on the feedback signal from the integrated high resolution position sensor. Closed-loop piezo control eliminates non-linearity and hysteresis effects and provides significantly higher precision.

Applications:  PI high-displacement amplified piezo actuators can be used for many applications, including high speed valves, dosing and pumping, optics alignment, nanopositioning, nano-dispensing, biotechnology, microfluidics, medical-devices, microscopy and life-sciences, and many other applications that require motion with high precision, high speed and ultra-high reliability, free of wear and maintenance.

Motion Amplified Piezo Actuators – Flexure Actuators with Integrated Guiding System

Why use PI Amplified Piezo Actuators?

Amplified Piezo Actuators can provide significantly longer travel ranges than the piezo stacks that drive them. PI has extensive experience in modelling flexures for extreme lifetime, guiding precision, high bandwidth, and frictionless, nanometer precise motion. In addition of the standard flexure amplified actuators shown below, PI has designed hundreds of custom models specifically tailored to our OEM’s application requirements – talk to a PI Engineer for details.

Flexure-guided and motion-amplified piezo ceramic actuators provide longer displacement ranges compared to piezo stacks in a more compact package. They are designed with protective preloads and several types of integrated flexure-guiding mechanisms are feasible depending on the guiding precision required in the application.
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P-604 Low-Cost, Piezo Flexure Actuator
300µm Motion, Flexure Guided
  • 300µm travel
  • Cost-optimized for large quantities
  • Lightweight construction, only 4 grams
  • Flexure guided = Frictionless & straight motion
  • Small footprint of 13x20mm
  • PICMA® long-life piezo actuator
  • For OEM instrumentation
P-601 Piezo Flexure Actuator
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P-601 Piezo Flexure Actuator
Closed-Loop Option
  • 100, 250 and 400µm travel
  • Position sensor option for closed-loop operation
  • Flexure guided = Frictionless & straight motion
  • High dynamics and stiffness
  • PICMA® long-life piezo actuator
P-602 Piezo Flexure Actuator
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P-602 Piezo Flexure Actuator
Motion to 1mm, High Force
  • Up to 1mm travel
  • Position sensor option for closed-loop operation
  • Flexure guided = Frictionless & straight motion
  • To 400N force, high stiffness & dynamics
  • PICMA® long-life piezo actuator
P-603 Piezo Flexure Actuator
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P-603 Piezo Flexure Actuator
Motion to 500µm
  • 100, 300 and 500µm travel
  • Position sensor option for closed-loop operation
  • Compact, cost-effective design
  • Flexure guided = Frictionless & straight motion
  • High dynamics and stiffness
  • PICMA® long-life piezo actuator
P-753 Piezo Flexure Stage/Actuator
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P-753 Piezo Flexure Stage/Actuator
Direct Drive, Highest Dynamics
  • 38µm travel
  • 0.05nm resolution
  • Capacitive feedback = Highest precision
  • Direct drive = Ultra-fast response
  • Frictionless precision flexure guides
  • Closed Loop Force Control at the Gripper Jaws
  • Blocking Force = 4N
  • Unloaded Travel = 500µm
  • Force sensitivity = 0.01N
  • Response time = 10msec
  • Mass <20g

We offer custom piezo actuators for OEMs.  Many customizations are possible – size, formfactor, stiffness, resonant frequency, capacitance, force, and displacement

PI’s amplified piezoelectric actuators have PI’s patented PICMA® cofired multilayer piezo stacks at their heart. PICMA® piezoelectric stack actuators are extremely reliable and survived 100 billion cycles of life-testing and harsh environments in space and on the Mars Rover with no failures.

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