Effect of c-axis tilted orientation ZnO thin film on shear-mode bulk acoustic resonator in liquid environment

Abstract

ZnO has been widely used as piezoelectric materials in bulk acoustic resonators, especially in shear-mode film bulk acoustic resonators (FBAR). In this paper, we studied the effect of c-axis tilted ZnO thin film on shear mode FBAR in liquid environment. Mechanical impedances of FBARs are compared between shear-mode and longitudinal-mode wave due to their different orientations of ZnO thin film. It is found ZnO thin film with 43° c-axis tilted angels induces quasi-shear-mode acoustic wave only. The Q values of FBAR with 43° c-axis tilted ZnO are 256.94 in air at 0.8148 GHz, and 34.34 in water at 0.814 GHz, respectively. The shifts of the resonant frequencies are proportional to the square root of the product of viscosity and density of liquid medium, which is consistent with Kanazawa-Gordon theory and verified by actual experiment.