A thin-film bulk acoustic resonator (FBAR or TFBAR) is a device consisting of a piezoelectric material manufactured by thin film methods between two conductive – typically metallic – electrodes and acoustically isolated from the surrounding medium. The operation is based on the piezoelectricity of the piezolayer between the electrodes.
FBAR devices using piezoelectric films with thicknesses typically ranging from several micrometres down to tenths of micrometres resonate in the frequency range of 100 MHz to 20 GHz. FBAR or TFBAR resonators fall in the category of bulk acoustic resonators (BAW) and piezoelectric resonators and they are used in applications where high frequency, small size like thickness and/or weight is needed. Industrial application areas of thin film bulk acoustic resonators include high-frequency signal filtering (e.g. for mobile telecommunication devices), crystal replacements, energy harvesting, sensing, sound emission (e.g. in hearing aids) and as part of mechanical qubits.
Piezoelectricity in thin films The crystallographic orientation of a thin film depends on the piezomaterial selected and many other items like the surface on which the film is grown and various manufacturing - thin film growth - conditions (temperatures selected, pressure, gases used, vacuum conditions etc.). Any material like lead zirconate titanate (PZT) or barium strontium titanate (BST) from the list of piezoelectric materials could act as an active material in an FBAR. However two compound materials aluminium nitride (AlN) and zinc oxide (ZnO) are the two most studied piezoelectric materials manufactured for high frequency FBAR realisations. This is due to the fact that the properties like stoichiometry of two compound materials can be easier to control compared to three compound materials manufactured by thin film methods. For example, it is known that thin film ZnO with C axis of the crystal structure (crystalline Z axis) normal to the substrate surface excites longitudinal (L) waves. Shear (transverse) (S) waves are excited if C axis of the film crystal structure is 41º tilted. It is also possible – depending on the crystal structure of the film – that both waves (L & S) are excited. Therefore, the understanding and control of the crystal structure of the manufactured piezoelectric film is crucial for the operation of the FBAR. For high frequency purposes like filtering of signals the energy conversion efficiency is the most important item and therefore longitudinal (L) waves are favored and targeted to be used. For sensing and actuation purposes the structural deformation might be more important than energy conversion efficiency and shear-mode wave excitation will be the target of the manufacturing of the piezoelectric film. Tuneability of resonance frequency of the resonator depends on material choices and may extend application areas. Despite the lower electromechanical coupling coefficient compared to zinc oxide, aluminum nitride, with a wider band gap has become the most used material in industrial applications, which require a wide bandwidth in signal processing. Compatibility with the silicon integrated circuit technology has supported AlN in FBAR resonator based products like radio frequency filters, duplexers, RF power amplifier or RF receiver modules. Thin film piezoelectric sensors may be based on various piezoelectric materials depending on the application, but two compound piezoelectric materials are favored due to simplicity of manufacturing.
Doping or adding new materials like scandium (Sc), are new directions to improve material properties of AlN for FBARs. Coupling of resonators in lateral direction/transversal excitation may find new ways to integrate resonators and filters with integrated circuits processing technologies specifically for higher frequencies than 3 GHz. Research of new electrode materials or alternative materials to aluminium like by replacing one of the metal electrodes with very light materials like graphene for minimising the loading of the resonator has been demonstrated to lead better control of the resonance frequency.
Substrates for FBAR resonators and their applications FBAR resonators can be manufactured on ceramic (Al2O3 or alumina), sapphire, glass or silicon substrates. However silicon wafer is the most common substrate due to its scalability towards mass manufacturing and compatibility with various manufacturing steps, often typical to semiconductor manufacturing, needed. During early studies and experimentation phase of thin film resonators in 1967 cadmium sulfide (CdS) was evaporated on a resonant piece of bulk quartz crystal which served as a transducer providing a Q factor (quality factor) of 5000 at the resonance frequency (279 MHz). This was an enabler for tighter frequency control, for needs to use higher frequencies and utilising FBAR resonators. With the development of thin film technologies it was possible to keep the Q factor high enough, leave out the crystal and increase resonance frequency. The experimentation of utilising silicon as a support material and thin film ZnO as an active piezolayer was published in 1981, which can be considered as a first experimentation of a thin film acoustic resonator on silicon.
Application areas FBAR devices can be used for radio frequency filtering. Most smartphones in 2020 include at least one FBAR-based duplexer or filter and some 4/5G products may even include 20–30 functionalities based on FBAR technology mainly due to the increased complexity of radio frequency front end (RFFE, RF front end) electronics – both receiver and transmitter paths – and the antenna/antenna system. Trends to utilize RF spectrum more efficiently with higher frequencies than roughly 1.5–2.5 GHz and in some cases also simultaneously with increasing RF output power have supported FBAR technology to become one of the key enabling technologies in telecommunication realisations. FBAR technology complements and in some cases competes with surface acoustic wave (SAW) technology and FBAR resonators can replace crystals in crystal oscillators and crystal filters at frequencies more than 100 MHz. Sensing and actuation is a developing area for FBAR resonators and structures based on them like in micro-mirror displays (DMD)s, as well as energy harvesting by utilizing nanogenerators. FBAR resonators can also be part of magnetoelectric devices like magnetoelectric sensors, antennas and isolators.
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