Optimized Reflector Stacks for Solidly Mounted Bulk Acoustic Wave Resonators

The quality factor (Q) of a solidly mounted bulk acoustic wave resonator (SMR) is limited by substrate losses, because the acoustic mirror is traditionally optimized to reflect longitudinal waves only. We propose two different design approaches derived from optics to tailor the acoustic mirror for effective reflection of both longitudinal and shear waves. The first one employs the stopband theory in optics; the second one takes advantage of the periodic nature of reflection spectra in a Bragg reflector: the diffraction grating design approach. The optimized design using stopband theory reaches a calculated minimum transmission of -25 dB and -20 dB at resonance frequency for longitudinal and shear waves, respectively, for various practical reflector material combinations. Using the diffraction grating approach, a near quarter-wave performance is maintained for longitudinal waves, whereas shear waves reach minimum transmission below -26 dB. However, this design does necessitate relatively thick layers. The experimental results show good agreement with finite element models (FEM). The extracted 1-D Q for the realized shear optimized devices was increased to around 3300.