Tunable barium strontium titanate thin film capacitors for RF and microwave applications

Abstract

The measurement results for thin film barium strontium titanate (BST) based voltage tunable capacitors intended for RF applications are reported. At 9 V DC, BST capacitors fabricated using MOCVD (metalorganic chemical vapor deposition) method achieved 71% (3.4:1) tunability. The measured device quality factor (Q) for BST varactors is comparable with the device Q for commercially available varactor diodes of similar capacitance. The typical dielectric loss tangent was in the range 0.003-0.009 at VHF. Large signal measurement and modeling results for BST thin film capacitors are also presented.