  Lead-magnesium niobate lead-titanate (PMN-PT) has been proven as an excellent
material for sensing and actuating applications. The fabrication of advanced
ultra-small PMN-PT-based devices relies on the availability of sophisticated
procedures for the micro-machining of PMN-PT thin films or bulk substrates.
Approaches reported up to date include chemical etching, excimer laser ablation
and ion milling. To ensure an excellent device performance, a key mandatory
feature for a micro-machining process is to preserve as far as possible the
crystalline quality of the substrates; in other words, the fabrication method
must induce a low density of cracks and other kind of defects. In this work, we
demonstrate a relatively fast procedure for the fabrication of high-quality
PMN-PT micro-machined actuators employing green femtosecond laser pulses. The
fabricated devices feature absence of extended cracks and well defined edges
with relatively low roughness, which is advantageous for the further
integration of nanomaterials onto the piezoelectric actuators.
