An A0 mode Lamb-wave AlN resonator on SOI substrate with vertically arranged double-electrodes

In this paper, a novel vertically arranged double-electrodes A(0) mode Lamb-wave AlN resonator on SOI substrate with a high electromechanical coupling coefficient and high figure of merit (FOM) is reported. The AlN resonator has a sandwich structure with aluminum and N-type doped silicon as electrode layers and a 500 nm thick AlN film as piezoelectric layer. The resonator has only two electrodes vertically arranged rather than horizontal interdigitated (IDT) electrodes which is common in conventional Lamb-wave resonators. The electrode gaps for the vertically arranged double-electrodes resonators are defined by AlN layer thickness rather than by photolithography for lateral field excitation resonators, which results in higher electric field strength and higher electromechanical coupling efficient (k(t)(2)). Compared with conventional thickness field excitation (TFE) resonators with floating bottom electrodes, the vertically arranged double-electrodes resonators have higher electric field strength as the potential difference is larger between the top electrode and bottom electrode than that between the IDT electrodes and floating electrode. As a result, a higher electromechanical coupling coefficient is achieved. Furthermore, the resonant frequency of the vertically arranged double-electrodes resonator presented in this work can be defined by photolithography by controlling the width of the silicon layer. The k(t)(2) of the vertically arranged double-electrodes resonator calculated from the measurement results of admittance versus frequency by numerically fitting with the Butterworth Van Dyke model shows an increase by 3.85 times, from 0.073% to 0.281% compared with conventional TFE resonators, and the FOM also increases by three times, from 2.66 to 7.99. This work provides a new structure to design future AlN Lamb-wave resonators on SOI substrate.

Automated summary

This paper reports a novel vertically arranged double-electrodes A(0) mode Lamb-wave AlN resonator on SOI substrate with high electromechanical coupling coefficient and figure of merit. The resonator utilizes a sandwich structure and only two vertically arranged electrodes, resulting in higher electric field strength and electromechanical coupling efficiency. The resonant frequency can be defined by photolithography by controlling the width of the silicon layer. The performance of the vertically arranged double-electrodes resonator is significantly better than conventional TFE resonators.