Effects of conducting layers on surface acoustic wave in AlN films on diamond

The interdigital transducer (IDT)/AlN/conducting layer/diamond structures are investigated in this study to design surface acoustic wave (SAW) devices in the super high frequency band. Simulation results using the finite element method show that a thin conducting layer can effectively increase the coupling coefficient and, thus, broaden the bandwidth of SAW devices. For the Sezawa mode, it is illustrated that using a Ti layer with a layer thickness-to-wavelength ratio of 0.02 the maximum coupling coefficient is 2.546% and the associated SAW phase velocity is 10657 m/s at the AlN films' thickness-to-wavelength ratio of 0.14. This coupling coefficient is 105% higher than that in the IDT/AlN/diamond structure. The research results can be applied to design SAW devices using diamond based structures in the super high frequency band.