Frequency response of an interdigital transducer for excitation of surface elastic waves

Excitation of elastic waves in a piezoelectric solid by an interdigital transducer, in terms of a simplified model, has been analyzed using Lamb´s integral solution. The transducer generates three types of disturbances propagating at the velocities of irrotational, equivoluminal, and Rayleigh waves. While the amplitudes of the former two waves diminish as the three-half power of the distance from the transducer, that of the latter does not decay with distance on the surface. Dependence of particle displacement of the waves on electric fields, number of electrodes, electrode width, and wave numbers has been derived. It has been shown that a conventional interdigital transducer, in which all the electrode widths and all the spacings are respectively equal among themselves, can respond to fundamental and odd harmonic excitations, but not to the even harmonics. Means to improve the insertion loss and the bandwidth of the transducer are discussed. A flat overall frequency response can be synthesized by parallel operation of two or more transducers, the fundamental frequencies of which are properly staggered.