Study on surface acoustic wave characteristics of SiO2/interdigital-transducer/ZnO/diamond structure and fabrication of 2.5 GHz narrow band filter

Surface acoustic wave (SAW) characteristics of the SiO2/interdigital-transducer(IDT)/ZnO/diamond structure were studied theoretically and experimentally. It was found that the 2nd mode in this structure can provide a zero temperature coefficient of frequency (TCF) as well as high velocity of 10,000 m/s and a large electromechanical coupling coefficient of 1.4%. Utilizing this wave, a 2.5 GHz narrow-band SAW filter was successfully fabricated with IDTs of 0.9 μm finger width, which resulted in superior characteristics for a retiming filter with a small insertion loss of 6.7 dB, Q value of 660 and small frequency deviation of 100 ppm in the temperature range from -40 to 85°C. The insertion loss is smaller than any other retiming filters which have ever been reported with quartz, a conventional SAW material, and also the frequency deviation with temperature is smaller than that in the case of ST-cut quartz.