The project titled "Piezoelectric Thin Films for Actuator applications" was sponsored by DST, govt. of India, with a total outlay of Rs. 20.00 lakhs. The project commenced on 01.04.2009 and completed successfully on 30.09.2011.

In this project, crack-free, dense piezoelectric thin films based on PZT with {001}; {110}; and {111}-preferential orientation were fabricated on Si.substrates by sol-gel spin coating method. One of the highest values reported for the transverse piezoelectric coefficient, e₃₁ was reported by us for the preferentially {110}-oriented PZT thin films indicating their suitability for MEMS applications.

One of the important constituents of this project was the establishment of a correlation between PZT Thin film texture and their piezoelectric characteristics.