Acceleration sensitivity of surface wave resonators

In light of the substantial performance advantages of STW over SAW in various areas, theoretical and experimental studies of the acceleration sensitivities of STW and SAW resonators have been undertaken. The purpose of the studios has been to understand the fundamental nature of STW and SAW acceleration sensitivities, and to determine whether the performance advantages of STW seen in other areas extend to the case of acceleration sensitivity. The basic approach utilizes the perturbation theory developed by Tiersten to calculate the acceleration sensitivities of both STW and SAW resonators. The acceleration-induced bias is conveniently written in terms of acceleration-induced deformation gradients and factored elastic stiffness expressions. This representation clarifies important concepts regarding the frequency shift and the involved elastic constants, and provides the designer with insight into the basic nature of the problem. The dependencies of the normal acceleration sensitivities on substrate and mode shape parameters and the fundamental nature of plate flexure are discussed at length. The calculations compare favorably to recent experimental results.