  Tuning and reconfiguring nanophotonic components is needed to realize systems
incorporating many components. The electrostatic force can deform a structure
and tune its optical response. Despite the success of electrostatic actuators,
they suffer from trade-offs between tuning voltage, tuning range, and on-chip
area. Piezoelectric actuation could resolve all these challenges. Standard
materials possess piezoelectric coefficients on the order of
${0.01}~\text{nm/V}$, suggesting extremely small on-chip actuation using
potentials on the order of one volt. Here we propose and demonstrate compact
piezoelectric actuators, called nanobenders, that transduce tens of nanometers
per volt. By leveraging the non-uniform electric field from submicron
electrodes, we generate bending of a piezoelectric nanobeam. Combined with a
sliced photonic crystal cavity to sense displacement, we show tuning of an
optical resonance by $\sim 5~\text{nm/V}~({0.6}~\text{THz/V})$ and between
$1520$ and $1560~\text{nm}$ ($\sim 400$ linewidths) with only $ {4}~\text{V}$.
Finally, we consider other tunable nanophotonic components enabled by
nanobenders.
