A high electromechanical coupling coefficient SH0 Lamb wave lithium niobate micromechanical resonator and a method for fabrication

Abstract We present a high coupling coefficient, k eff 2 , micromechanical resonator based on the propagation of SH0 Lamb waves in thin, suspended plates of single crystal X-cut lithium niobate (LiNbO 3 ). The thin plates are fabricated using ion implantation of He to create a damaged layer of LiNbO 3 below the wafer surface. This damaged layer is selectively wet etched in a hydrofluoric (HF) acid based chemistry to form thin, suspended plates of LiNbO 3 without the wafer bonding, layer fracturing and chemical mechanical polishing in previously reported LiNbO 3 microfabrication approaches. The highest coupling coefficient is found for resonators with acoustic propagation rotated 170° from the y -axis, where a fundamental mode SH0 Lamb wave resonator with a plate width of 20 μm and a corresponding resonant frequency of 101 MHz achieves a k eff 2 of 12.4%, a quality factor of 1300 and a resonator figure of merit ( M ) of 185. The k eff 2 and M are among the highest reported for micromechanical resonators.