Investigations on the Quality Factor of Lithium Niobate Laterally Vibrating Resonators with Figure of Merit Greater than 1,500

This paper reports on quality factor investigations of high-performance 50 MHz X-cut Lithium Niobate (LN) Laterally Vibrating Resonators (LVR). The effects of resonators' topology on the Figure of Merit (FoM) -product of quality factor at series resonance (\pmbQs) and electromechanical coupling (\pmbkt
²
) - are studied in regard to the most important design variables for single element devices. Vacuum measurements highlighted a consistent increase (+ 25%) in \pmbQs. Low temperature measurements pointed out that electrical loading is one of the most important sources of damping for the devices under study. A Monte Carlo approach was used to simulate the effects of frequency mismatch on \pmbQs as a function of the number of elements forming parallel arrays of resonators. For individual resonators, FoMs over 1,500 were recorded in vacuum, with \pmbQs ranging from 3,000 to 5,000 and , the highest ever recorded for resonators in the MHz range.