NEC Tokin and the AIST (National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology) have developed a small ultrasonic motor for the optical zoom lens of a camera phone. There are already some camera phones equipped with optical zoom lenses in Japan, but these have fixed zoom ratio, whereas the ultrasonic motor is so tiny that it can be fit into the phone to provide a continuous zoom feature.

 

Shaped in the form of a tube, the motor is 7mm tall with a diameter of 2mm. The motor is driven by a ceramic actuator which is only ten microns thick, about a tenth of existing actuators. A thinner actuator usually vibrates with less displacement, reducing the power of the ultrasonic motor. NEC Tokin and AIST however used a technique called aerosol deposition to ensure their actuator will still vibrate with enough displacement to produce enough power. Research is continuing on how to increase the actuator displacement even more. The developers are aiming to commercialize the motor within the coming year.