Micromachined One-Port Aluminum Nitride Lamb Wave Resonators Utilizing the Lowest-Order Symmetric Mode

The characteristics of one-port aluminum nitride (AlN) Lamb wave resonators utilizing the lowest-order symmetric mode with electrically open, grounded, and floating bottom electrode configurations are theoretically and experimentally investigated in this paper. Finite element analysis is performed to take an insight into the static capacitance characteristics of the AlN Lamb wave resonators with various bottom surface conditions. Without sacrificing the transduction efficiency, the floating bottom electrode is capable of reducing the static capacitance in the AlN thin plate and then promotes an efficient improvement in the effective coupling coefficient (k²_eff). In addition, in comparison with the grounded bottom electrode, the employment of the floating bottom electrode offers simple fabrication processes for the micromachined Lamb wave resonators. Experimentally, the AlN Lamb wave resonators without the bottom electrode exhibit an average loaded quality factor (Q) as high as 2676 at the series resonance frequency, but a low average k²_eff of 0.19%. On the contrary, the Lamb wave resonators with the electrically floating bottom electrode show the largest average k²_eff up to 1.13% among the three topologies but a low average loaded Q of 800 at the series resonance frequency. In contrast to the floating bottom electrode, the Lamb wave resonators with the electrically grounded bottom electrode show a smaller average k²_eff of 0.78% and a similar average loaded Q of 758 at the series resonance frequency.