Enhanced performance of AlN SAW devices with wave propagation along the 〈11−20〉 direction on c-plane sapphire substrate

This paper investigates the effect of acoustic wave propagation direction along the a-direction (〈11−20〉) and m-direction (〈1−100〉) on the frequency responses of c-plane AlN based surface acoustic wave (SAW) devices systematically. The experimental results indicate that the resonant frequency (), quality factor (Q), electromechanical coupling coefficient (), insertion loss and out-of-band rejection can be improved for the a-direction compared with the m-direction of an AlN based SAW resonator on sapphire. The Q is 1347 for a one-port SAW resonator along the a-direction, and the minimum insertion loss is 8.71 dB for a two-port SAW resonator along the a-direction. The insertion loss is 3.23 dB lower for the a-direction compared to the m-direction of the AlN film, which may be attributed to the larger acoustic power flow density. The is 45% higher for the a-direction compared to the m-direction of the AlN film, which may be attributed to the larger elastic constant. In addition, our finite element model simulation results reveal the C 11 and C 44 for the m-direction are 345 GPa and 102 GPa, while C 11 and C 44 for the a-direction is increased to 429 GPa and 128 GPa, respectively. Our work demonstrates that the a-direction is better than the m-direction of the AlN film for high performance SAW device applications.