Cladding Layer Enhanced GHz Bulk Acoustic Wave Resonance in Sodium Niobate Thin Films on Silicon

Abstract

Bulk acoustic wave resonators (BAWR) and bandpass filters operating at GHz frequency are the workhorse of (Vo-)LTE telecommunication and broadband internet. In line with the Singapore Green Plan 2030 for innovating environmentally friendly products, we fabricated lead-free BAWR with sodium niobate (NaNbO3) piezoelectric on silicon with a high electromechanical coupling factor up to 31.3% operating at ~4 GHz. We disclose our crucial strategy where the NaNbO3 layer is cladded between two thin layers of high band gap insulators, which satisfies two primary objectives, i.e. leakage current mitigation and crack avoidance. In addition, we also verified the efficacy of reducing lattice parameters of the cladding layers in promoting vertically distorted tetragonal phase NaNbO3 and producing stronger BAWR signals.