The determination of the optimal length of crystal blanks in quartz crystal resonators

It is well understood that the strong coupling of thickness-shear and flexural vibrations in piezoelectric crystal plates only occurs at specific length at which the vibration mode conversion, like the flexural mode gradually converting to thickness-shear mode while the thickness-shear mode converting to higher-order flexural mode, happens. It is important to avoid the strong coupling of modes in a crystal resonator that uses thickness-shear vibrations to enhance the energy trapping. To achieve such a design goal, the length of a crystal blank should be carefully chosen such that the coupling is at its weakest, which usually is in the middle of two strong coupling points. Through a closer examination of the frequency spectra, or the frequency-length relationship in this study, we can see that the strong coupling points appear periodically. This implies that we can find exact locations with the plate theory that predicts the resonance frequency. Based on this observation, we first use the first-order Mindlin plate theory with the precise thickness-shear frequency, which is normalized to one, to find corresponding wavenumbers. Then the length as a variable is solved from the coupled frequency equation for exact coupling points in a crystal plate of AT-cut quartz. The optimal length of a crystal blank in the simplest resonator model is calculated for the coupled thickness-shear, flexural, and extensional vibrations. The solutions and the method will be important in the determination of optimal length of a crystal blank in the resonator design process.