Dual-resonator Lamb wave strain sensor with temperature compensation and enhanced sensitivity

Abstract

In this letter, we demonstrate a high-temperature dual-resonator Lamb wave tensile strain sensor which can achieve temperature compensation in a wide temperature range and has high strain sensitivities. This sensor consists of two identical AlN-on-SOI Lamb wave resonators (LWRs) adhered on a uniaxial tensile plate, with the wave propagating directions in the two LWRs parallel and perpendicular to the tensile axis, respectively. The most obvious higher-order Lamb wave modes, i.e., the A4, S4, and S5 modes, in the “parallel” LWR present high strain sensitivities of 0.229 ppm/με (196 Hz/με), 0.480 ppm/με (431 Hz/με), and 0.222 ppm/με (205 Hz/με) all with minus signs, whereas in the “perpendicular” LWR, they demonstrate smaller strain sensitivities all with plus signs. The S4 modes in the two LWRs have almost the same temperature coefficients. Based on the experimental results, a generally applicable beat frequency method with these two LWRs is proposed to realize temperature compensation as well as the high-sensitivity strain measurement.