Experimental Demonstration of Nanoscale Pillar Phononic Crystal-Based Reflector for Surface Acoustic Wave Devices

Workie, Temesgen Bailie; Zhang, Lingqin; Shen, Junyao; Jiang, Jianli; Yao, Wenfeng; Shen, Quhuan; Bao, Jingfu; Hashimoto, Ken-ya

doi:10.3390/mi16060663

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Experimental Demonstration of Nanoscale Pillar Phononic Crystal-Based Reflector for Surface Acoustic Wave Devices

by

Temesgen Bailie Workie

^1,2,*

,

Lingqin Zhang

²,

Junyao Shen

^1,2,

Jianli Jiang

²,

Wenfeng Yao

²,

Quhuan Shen

²,

Jingfu Bao

^1,*

and

Ken-ya Hashimoto

¹

School of Integrated Circuit Science and Engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 611731, China

²

Tiantong Ruihong Technology Co., Ltd., No. 306, Haining City 314499, China

^*

Authors to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Micromachines 2025, 16(6), 663; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi16060663

Submission received: 15 May 2025 / Revised: 29 May 2025 / Accepted: 30 May 2025 / Published: 31 May 2025

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Progress in RF MEMS Devices and Applications)

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Abstract

This article presents an investigation into the use of nanoscale phononic crystals (PnCs) as reflectors for surface acoustic wave (SAW) resonators, with a focus on pillar-based PnCs. Finite element analysis was employed to simulate the phononic dispersion characteristics and to study the effects of the pillar shape, material and geometric dimensions on achievable acoustic bandgap. To validate our concept, we fabricated SAW resonators and filters incorporating the proposed pillar-based PnC reflectors. The PnC-based reflector shows promising performance, even with smaller number of PnC arrays. In this regard, with a PnC array reflector consisting of 20 lattice periods, the SAW resonator exhibits a maximum bode-Q of about 1600, which can be considered to be a reasonably high value for SAW resonators on bulk 42° Y-X lithium tantalate (42° Y-X LiTaO₃) substrate. Furthermore, we implemented SAW filters using pillar-based PnC reflectors, resulting in a minimum insertion loss of less than 3 dB and out-of-band attenuation exceeding 35 dB. The authors believe that there is still a long way to go in making it fit for mass production, especially due to issues related with the accuracy of fabrication. But, upon its successful implementation, this approach of using PnCs as SAW reflectors could lead to reducing the foot-print of SAW devices, particularly for SAW-based sensors and filters.

Keywords: acoustic bandgap; phononic crystal; quality factor; reflector; resonator; RF filter; surface acoustic wave device

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MDPI and ACS Style

Workie, T.B.; Zhang, L.; Shen, J.; Jiang, J.; Yao, W.; Shen, Q.; Bao, J.; Hashimoto, K.-y. Experimental Demonstration of Nanoscale Pillar Phononic Crystal-Based Reflector for Surface Acoustic Wave Devices. Micromachines 2025, 16, 663. https://doi.org/10.3390/mi16060663

AMA Style

Workie TB, Zhang L, Shen J, Jiang J, Yao W, Shen Q, Bao J, Hashimoto K-y. Experimental Demonstration of Nanoscale Pillar Phononic Crystal-Based Reflector for Surface Acoustic Wave Devices. Micromachines. 2025; 16(6):663. https://doi.org/10.3390/mi16060663

Chicago/Turabian Style

Workie, Temesgen Bailie, Lingqin Zhang, Junyao Shen, Jianli Jiang, Wenfeng Yao, Quhuan Shen, Jingfu Bao, and Ken-ya Hashimoto. 2025. "Experimental Demonstration of Nanoscale Pillar Phononic Crystal-Based Reflector for Surface Acoustic Wave Devices" Micromachines 16, no. 6: 663. https://doi.org/10.3390/mi16060663

APA Style

Workie, T. B., Zhang, L., Shen, J., Jiang, J., Yao, W., Shen, Q., Bao, J., & Hashimoto, K.-y. (2025). Experimental Demonstration of Nanoscale Pillar Phononic Crystal-Based Reflector for Surface Acoustic Wave Devices. Micromachines, 16(6), 663. https://doi.org/10.3390/mi16060663

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Experimental Demonstration of Nanoscale Pillar Phononic Crystal-Based Reflector for Surface Acoustic Wave Devices

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