Macroscopic Disk Rotation by Means of Surface Acoustic Waves

It is shown experimentally that a flat piezoelectric disk poled perpendicular to its surface and suspended on a thin thread can be rotated about 50° by two surface acoustic waves (SAWs) intentionally excited with different amplitudes and propagating in the opposite directions. The excitation of such counter-propagating SAWs with different amplitudes is based on the nonsymmetrical interdigital transducer with different angular width electrodes located along the disk radius. The angular width of each of the two electrodes per angular period is not change along the disk radius. Such a ring unidirectional transducer realized on one of the disk surfaces is used for the excitation of SAWs. Hereby, the flat surface of the disk allows one to create any transducer pattern using conventional technology. The other disk surface can be free or covered by the silver layer.