Development of two-port surface acoustic wave resonator with Al/Au electrodes for gas sensing

Simple and efficient surface acoustic wave （SAW） two-port resonators with low insertion loss and high Q-values on ST-X quartz substrate using a corrosion-proof A1/Au-stripe electrode structure are developed for gas sensing. It was composed of two shorted grating reflectors and adjacent intedigital transducers （IDT）, and an active metal film in the cavity between the IDTs for the sensitive film coating. The devices are expected to provide good protection towards metal electrode for gas sensors application in chemically reactive environments. Excellent device performance as low insertion loss, high Q factor and single-mode are achieved by carefully selecting the metallic electrode thickness, cavity length and acoustic aperture. Prior to fabrication, the coupling of modes （COM） model was performed for device simulation to determine the optimal design parameters. The fabricated single-mode SAW resonator at operation frequency of 300 MHz range exhibits matched insertion loss of ~6.5 dB and loaded Q factor in the 3000 range. Using the fabricated resonator as the feedback element, a duaresonator-oscillator with excellent frequency stability （0.1 ppm） was developed and evaluated experimentally, and it is significant for performance improvement of SAW gas sensor.

Design and fabrication of an surface acoustic wave resonator based on AlN/4H-SiC material for harsh environments

Surface acoustic wave （SAW） sensors and micro-electromechanical system （MEMS） technology provide a promising solution for measurement in harsh environments such as gas turbines. In this paper, a SAW resonator （size： 1107μm× 721 μm） based on the AlN/4H-SiC multilayer structure is designed and simulated. A MEMS-compatible fabrication process is employed to fabricate the resonator. The results show that highly c-axis-oriented AlN thin films deposited on the 4H-SiC substrate are obtained, with that the diffraction peak of AlN is 36.10° and the lowest full width at half maximum （FWHM） value is only 1.19°. The test results of the network analyzer are consistent with the simulation curve, which is very encouraging and indicates that our work is a significant attempt to solve the measurement problems mainly including high temperature stability of sensitive structures and the heat transmission of leads in harsh environments. It is essential to get the best performance of SAW resonator, optimize and characterize the behaviors in high temperatures in future research.