Development of a high-performance bend-actuated piezoelectric tip/tilt stage with low power and simple operation

Piezoelectric tip/tilt stages (PZT stages), which precisely and quickly control laser beam deflection, are widely used in laser communications. Most are driven by piezoelectric stack actuators (PSAs) and have high capacitance and power consumption. The negative voltage causes irreversible damage to PSAs. Therefore, negative voltage operation needs to be prohibited, which complicates manipulating the bidirectional deflection of the mirror. However, the aerospace field places higher requirements on power consumption and ease of operation, which makes the PZT stage require reduced power consumption and simple operation. This paper presents a high-performance bend-actuated PZT stage, which uses ceramic plates for driving, with a capacitance of only 26.4 nF/axis and a power of only 27 mW (at operating conditions of 1 mrad and 100 Hz). The sandwich structure allows for bi-directional voltage, which makes the operation easier. Two channels control two degrees of freedom (DOFs). A theoretical mod el suitable for bend-actuated structures is proposed. It is used to calculate the deflection angle and resonance frequency, and its validity is verified by finite element analysis. Experimental results show that it has a deflection angle of ±2.97 mrad (x-axis), ±3.24 mrad (y-axis) at 600 V_p-p, an unloaded first-order resonance frequency of 1728 Hz, and a quasi-static hysteresis of only 7.5%, which is less than that of PSAs (>10%). With the constructed laser beam deflection system, a circular trajectory is realized, which has the potential for beam steering.