A novel micromechanical resonator using two-dimensional phononic crystal slab

Abstract

Two-dimensional (2-D) Silicon phononic crystal (PnC) slab of a square array of cylindrical air holes in a 10μm thick free-standing silicon plate with line defects is characterized as a cavity-mode PnC resonator. Piezoelectric aluminum nitride (AlN) film is deployed as the interdigital transducers (IDT) to transmit and detect acoustic waves, thus making the whole microfabrication process CMOS-compatible. Both the band structure of the PnC and the transmission spectrum of the proposed PnC resonator are analyzed and optimized using finite element method (FEM). The measured quality factor (Q factor) of the microfabricated PnC resonator is over 1,000 at its resonant frequency of 152.46MHz. The proposed PnC resonator shows promising acoustic resonance characteristics for RF communications and sensing applications. © (2011) Trans Tech Publications, Switzerland.