Influence of electrode configurations on the quality factor and piezoelectric coupling constant of solidly mounted bulk acoustic wave resonators

This article presents an electrode effect on the quality factor and effective coupling coefficient empirically and theoretically. The possible quality factor detractors in film bulk acoustic wave resonator devices are the acoustic wave attenuation in the metal and piezoelectric films, the wave scattering loss due to the surface roughness, and the electrode electrical loss. Due to the small acoustic wave attenuation of the Mo electrode, the composite Mo–AlN–Mo resonator with the thick electrode provides higher Q values than the resonator with the good quality AlN film and the thin Mo electrode. In such Mo electroded resonators, the effective coupling coefficient is kept relatively high. It is found that the Q value of solidly mounted resonators (SMRs) is not determined by only the piezoelectric film quality, but by a weighted average of the electrode and piezoelectric film quality. Of Q value detractors, the scattering loss originating from surface roughness is thought to be very important factor in SMR quality value. © 2002 American Institute of Physics.