The displacement output of the telescoping actuators, as developed in the NRL, depend on the material properties. Recently developed relaxor ferroelectric materials, with compositions near the morphotropic phase boundary and in single crystal forms, show high strain output capability and high coupling coefficients. These materials, when design into devices, would provide high performance, in terms of displacement output, and high transduction efficiency. We have utilized one of these single crystal materials, namely, lead zinc niobate-lead titanate, PZN-PT, for the construction of the NRL telescoping actuators. The evaluation of the piezoelectric performance of these single crystal-based telescoping actuators showed much higher displacement outputs than that for the ones previously made with polycrystalline PZT ceramics.
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