Aluminum Nitride Lamb-Wave Resonators for High-Power High-Frequency Applications

We report a Lamb acoustic wave resonator with high-power-handling, linearity, and intermodulation distortion capabilities. Fundamental physical aspects are examined as well, the study providing the full picture for a high-power radio-frequency application design. Despite their reduced size and freestanding structure, our checkered-electrode aluminum nitride resonators perform +20 dBm 1-dB compression point (P1dB), third-order intermodulation distortion intercept point (IIP3) close to +40 dBm, and second-order intermodulation distortion intercept point (IIP2) around +70 dBm with quality factor Q = 1225 and effective electromechanical coupling coefficient k_eff² of 1.4% at 232 MHz, thus challenging current-art contour-mode and bulk acoustic wave resonators.