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PZT thin films have excellent performance in deformation precision and response speed, so it is used widely for actuators and sensors of Micro Electro Mechanical System (MEMS). Although PZT thin films outputs large piezoelectricity at morphotropic phase bounfary (MPB), it shows a complicated hysteresis behavior caused by domain switching and structural phase transition between tetragonal and rhombohedral. In general, PZT thin films have some characteristic crystal morphologies. Additionally mechanical strains occur by lattice mismatch with substrate. Therefore it is important for fabrication and performance improvement of PZT thin films to understand the relation between macroscopic hysteresis response and microstructural changes. In this study, a multiscale nonlinear finite element simulation was proposed for PZT thin films at morphotropic phase boundary (MPB) on the substrate. The homogenization theory was employed for scale-bridging between macrostructure and microstructure. Figure 1 shows the proposed multiscale nonlinear simulation [1-3] based on the homogenization theory. Macrostructure is a homogeneous structure to catch the whole behaviors of actuators and sensors. And microstructure is a periodic inhomogeneous structure consisting of domains and grains. Macrostructure and microstructure are connected perfectly by homogenization theory and are analyzed by finite element method. We utilized an incremental form of fundamental constitutive law in consideration with physical property change caused by domain switching and structural phase transition. The developed multiscale finite element method was applied to PZT thin films with lattice mismatch strain on the substrate, and the relation between the macroscopic hysteresis response and microscopic domain switching and structural phase transition were investigated. Especially, we discuss about the effect of crystal morphologies and lattice mismatch strain on hysteresis response.
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