Embedded interdigital transducers for high-frequency surface acoustic waves on GaAs

Abstract

We investigate high-performance, high-frequency interdigital transducers (IDTs) for the generation of surface acoustic waves (SAWs) on GaAs substrates, where the metal fingers are embedded in the substrate. We demonstrate that the acoustic reflections and the scattering of the surface modes into the substrate become considerably reduced in these transducers, leading to an increased output power. The finger embedding process is particularly relevant for the generation of powerful beams of high-frequency SAWs on weak piezoelectric substrates (such as most of the semiconducting materials) using long IDTs. We also show that the reflection reduction is important for the design of focusing single-finger IDTs, since it minimizes the effects of the finger grating on the angular dependence of the phase velocity.