The present invention relates to an acoustic wave device.
Acoustic wave devices have been widely used in various purposes, such as filters for mobile phones. Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2019-145895 discloses an example of an acoustic wave device. This acoustic wave device includes a support substrate, a high velocity film, a low velocity film, and a piezoelectric layer laminated in this order. An interdigital transducer (IDT) electrode is disposed on the piezoelectric layer. The high velocity film is formed from SiNx. Here, x<0.67, and thus, the higher order mode is reduced.
However, the acoustic wave device described in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2019-145895 is not suitable for reducing a higher order mode in a wide band.
Preferred embodiments of the present invention provide acoustic wave devices each capable of reducing a higher order mode in a wide band.
An acoustic wave device according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention includes a crystal substrate, a polycrystalline silicon layer on the crystal substrate, a piezoelectric layer on the polycrystalline silicon layer, and an interdigital transducer electrode on the piezoelectric layer and that includes multiple electrode fingers.
An acoustic wave device according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention can reduce a higher order mode in a wide band.
The above and other elements, features, steps, characteristics and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments with reference to the attached drawings.
With reference to the drawings, specific preferred embodiments of the present invention are described below with reference to the drawings to clarify the present invention.
Each preferred embodiment described herein is a mere example, and components between different preferred embodiments may be partially replaced with each other or combined with each other.
As illustrated in
An IDT electrode 7 is disposed on the lithium tantalate layer 6. When an alternating current voltage is applied to the IDT electrode 7, acoustic waves are excited. As illustrated in
The low velocity film 5 illustrated in
As described above, the piezoelectric substrate 2 includes the crystal substrate 3 and the lithium tantalate layer 6. Thus, the piezoelectric substrate 2 has a small difference in a coefficient of linear expansion, and thus can improve frequency temperature characteristics. The low velocity film 5 formed from a silicon oxide film can reduce an absolute value of the temperature coefficient of frequency (TCF) in the piezoelectric substrate 2, and thus can further improve the frequency temperature characteristics. Instead, the low velocity film 5 may be eliminated.
The lithium tantalate layer 6 preferably has a cut-angle of about 20°-rotated Y-cut X-propagation to about 60°-rotated Y-cut X-propagation, for example. Thus, an acoustic wave element having a preferable electromechanical coupling coefficient and a preferable Q value can be obtained. Similarly, also when the piezoelectric layer is a lithium niobate layer, the lithium niobate layer preferably has a cut-angle of about 20°-rotated Y-cut X-propagation to about 60°-rotated Y-cut X-propagation, for example.
In the present preferred embodiment, a bulk wave that propagates through the crystal substrate 3 has a lower velocity than an acoustic wave that propagates through the lithium tantalate layer 6. More specifically, a slow transversal wave that propagates through the crystal substrate 3 has a lower velocity than a surface acoustic wave that propagates through the lithium tantalate layer 6. However, the relationship in velocity between the crystal substrate 3 and the lithium tantalate layer 6 is not limited to the above.
As illustrated in
A wavelength defined by an electrode finger pitch of the IDT electrode 7 is defined as λ. The lithium tantalate layer 6 has a thickness of smaller than or equal to about 1λ, for example. This structure can thus preferably enhance excitation efficiency. The electrode finger pitch is a center distance between adjacent electrode fingers.
One of the unique features of the present preferred embodiment is that the piezoelectric substrate 2 includes the crystal substrate 3, the polycrystalline silicon layer 4, and the lithium tantalate layer 6. The piezoelectric substrate 2 having the above structure can set, for example, the mode of frequencies around 2.2 times of the resonant frequency to a leaky mode. This structure can thus reduce a higher order mode in a wide band. The details of this effect are described below by comparing the present preferred embodiment and a comparative example.
The comparative example differs from the first preferred embodiment in that a piezoelectric substrate is a multilayer body including a silicon substrate, a silicon nitride film, a silicon oxide film, and a lithium tantalate layer. The acoustic wave device 1 according to the first preferred embodiment and an acoustic wave device according to the comparative example are compared in terms of phase characteristics. An example of the acoustic wave device 1 according to the first preferred embodiment has design parameters below.
Herein, unless otherwise specified, the orientations of the crystal substrate 3 are indicated with the Euler angles. The coordinate systems of the Euler angles are coordinate systems illustrated in
As indicated with arrow A in
In the piezoelectric substrate 2, the lithium tantalate layer 6 is indirectly disposed on the polycrystalline silicon layer 4 with the low velocity film 5 interposed in between. Instead, the piezoelectric substrate 2 may eliminate the low velocity film 5. For example, in a modification example for the first preferred embodiment illustrated in
In the acoustic wave device 1 according to the first preferred embodiment, the Z ratio and the phase of a higher order mode are measured every time the thickness of the polycrystalline silicon layer 4 is changed. The Z ratio is an impedance ratio. More specifically, the Z ratio is calculated by dividing the impedance of an anti-resonant frequency with the impedance of the resonant frequency. The phase of the measured higher order mode is a phase component of the impedance in a maximum mode in a spurious mode caused within a range of frequencies of about 1.15 times to about 3 times of the resonant frequency including frequencies of about 2.2 times of the resonant frequency. The thickness of the polycrystalline silicon layer 4 is changed in approximately 0.05λ intervals within the range greater than or equal to about 0.05λ to smaller than or equal to about 1.5λ, for example. Thus, the relationship between the thickness of the polycrystalline silicon layer 4, the Z ratio, and the phase of the higher order mode is obtained. In the following description, the thickness of the polycrystalline silicon layer 4 is denoted with t.
In addition, θ in the Euler angles (φ, θ, ψ) of the crystal substrate 3 is changed, and the above relationship for θ with each angle is obtained. In the Euler angles of the crystal substrate 3, φ is set at 0°, and ψ is set at about 90°. The angle θ is changed in approximately 1° intervals within the range larger than or equal to about 185° and smaller than or equal to about 190°, and changed in approximately 5° intervals within the range larger than or equal to about 190° and smaller than or equal to about 240°, for example.
As illustrated in
As illustrated in
On the other hand, as illustrated in
It is known that when φ in the Euler angles of the crystal substrate 3 is within the range of about 0°±2.5°, and when ψ is within the range of about 90°±2.5°, the effects on the Z ratio and the higher order mode are small. From the above, preferably, the Euler angles (φ, θ, ψ) of the crystal substrate 3 are (about 0°±2.5°, θ, about 90°±2.5°), and the relationship between θ in the Euler angles of the crystal substrate 3 and the thickness t of the polycrystalline silicon layer 4 is any of the combinations in Table 1. Thus, the Z ratio can be stably increased, and the higher order mode can be effectively reduced.
As described above, in the first preferred embodiment, a bulk wave that propagates through the crystal substrate 3 has a lower velocity than an acoustic wave that propagates through the lithium tantalate layer 6. Thus, the crystal substrate 3 can leak a higher order mode, and thus the higher order mode can be effectively reduced. For example, the Euler angles (about 0°, about 185°, about 90°) of the crystal substrate 3 of the acoustic wave device 1 exhibiting the phase characteristic in
In Table 2 to Table 14, each of the Euler angles (φ, θ, ψ) is within the range of about ±2.5°. More specifically, in Table 2, φ is within the range of about −2.5°≤φ<about 2.5°, and in Table 3, φ is within the range of about 2.5°≤φ<about 7.5°. Thus, in Table 2 to Table 14, φ increments by approximately 5°. In Table 14, φ is within the range of about 57.5°≤φ≤about 62.5°. Each table shows the range of θ when φ is within a fixed range, and the range of ψ is changed in approximately 5° intervals. More specifically, when, for example, ψ is described as 0° in each table, the range of θ where about −2.5°ψ<about 2.5° is described, and when ψ is described as about 5°, the range of θ where about 2.5°≤ψ<about 7.5° is described. When ψ is described as about 175°, the range of θ where about 172.5°≤ψ≤about 177.5° is described. The range of θ in each table also shows the range of higher than or equal to about −2.5° of the described lower limit and smaller than or equal to about +2.5° of the described upper limit.
Despite when the Euler angles of the crystal substrate 3 are within the range of the Euler angles equivalent to the range of (φ, θ, ψ) in Table 2 to Table 14, a bulk wave that propagates through the crystal substrate 3 has a lower velocity than an acoustic wave that propagates through the lithium tantalate layer 6. The symmetry of quartz crystal is D36 or D34 in Schoenflies notation, or a point group of 32 in international notation. Hiroshi KAMEYAMA, Symmetry of Elastic Vibration in Quartz Crystal, Japanese Journal of Applied Physics, Volume 23, Number S1, describes that crystal has high symmetry with respect to the polar coordinates (θ, φ). The following description expresses that various features f (θ, φ) relating to the acoustic vibration such as velocity, an elastic constant, displacement, or a frequency constant are unchangeable by the symmetry operation.
The three-rotation axis in
Hereafter, an effect of effectively reducing a higher order mode in a wide band with a bulk wave that propagates through the crystal substrate 3 having a lower velocity than an acoustic wave that propagates through the lithium tantalate layer 6 is described in detail.
With reference to
The acoustic wave device according to the second preferred embodiment and the acoustic wave device according to the third preferred embodiment are compared in terms of the phase characteristics. Examples of the design parameters of the acoustic wave devices are as follows.
In the second preferred embodiment, the Euler angles (φ, θ, ψ) of the crystal substrate 3 are set as (about 0°, about 180°, about 90°). In this case, a slow transversal wave that propagates through the crystal substrate 3 has a velocity of about 3915.4 m/s, for example. A surface acoustic wave that propagates through the lithium tantalate layer 6 has a velocity of about 3816 m/s, for example. Thus, the slow transversal wave that propagates through the crystal substrate 3 has a higher velocity than the surface acoustic wave that propagates through the lithium tantalate layer 6.
In the third preferred embodiment, the Euler angles (φ, θ, ψ) of the crystal substrate 3 are set as (about 0°, about 200°, about 60°). In this case, a slow transversal wave that propagates through the crystal substrate 3 has a velocity of about 3538.2 m/s, for example. A surface acoustic wave that propagates through the lithium tantalate layer 6 has a velocity of about 3816 m/s, for example. Thus, the slow transversal wave that propagates through the crystal substrate 3 has a lower velocity than the surface acoustic wave that propagates through the lithium tantalate layer 6.
As illustrated in
While preferred embodiments of the present invention have been described above, it is to be understood that variations and modifications will be apparent to those skilled in the art without departing from the scope and spirit of the present invention. The scope of the present invention, therefore, is to be determined solely by the following claims.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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2021-016822 | Feb 2021 | JP | national |
This application claims the benefit of priority to Japanese Patent Application No. 2021-016822 filed on Feb. 4, 2021 and is a Continuation application of PCT Application No. PCT/JP2022/003616 filed on Jan. 31, 2022. The entire contents of each application are hereby incorporated herein by reference.
Number | Date | Country | |
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Parent | PCT/JP2022/003616 | Jan 2022 | US |
Child | 18217677 | US |