Surface acoustic wave devices materials

The major piezoelectric applications are sensors (pickups, keyboards, microphones, etc.), electromechanical transducers (actuators, vibrators, etc ), signal devices, and surface acoustic wave devices (resonators, traps, filters, etc ). Typical materials are ZnO, AIN, PbTiOg, LiTaOg, and Pb(Zr.Ti)03 (PZT). 

The materials listed in Table 5.1 are also not complete but the selection represents the most relevant composites which are of commercial interest. In addition to the performance issue, there is a strong tendency in research and development to reduce the costs. For that reason, a lot of research is devoted to the niobates as possible replacement for the tantalates, because niobium is cheaper than tantalum. In addition, compensated materials with very high values of the permittivity are currently under development. Recently, for the compound Ag(Nbi a Taa )03 with 0.35< x <0.65, er values of 450 were achieved for potential use as filters (to replace the surface-acoustic-wave devices) and planar antennas in mobile phones [19],... 

Any type of acoustic transducer, such as quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) or surface acoustic wave device (SAW), is fundamentally based on the piezoelectric effect. This was first described in 1880 by Jacques and Pierre Curie as a property of crystalline materials that do not have an inversion centre. When such a material is subjected to physical stress, a measurable voltage occurs on the crystal surfaces. Naturally, the opposite effect can also be observed, i.e. applying an electrical charge on a piezoelectric material leads to mechanical distortion, the so-called inverse piezo effect. These phenomena can be used to transfrom an electrical signal to a mechanical one and back, which actually happens in QCM and SAW. Different materials are ap-pHed for device fabrication, such as quartz, Hthium tantalate, lithium titanate... 

There are some excellent review articles on different aspects of mesostructured materials, such as synthesis, properties, and applications. " Extensive research effort has been devoted to the exploitation of new phases (lamellar, cubic, hexagonal structures), expansion of the pore sizes (about 2-50 nm are accessible), and variable framework compositions (from pure silica, through mixed metal oxides to purely metal oxide-based frameworks, and inorganic-organic hybrid mesostructures). Another research focus is on the formation of mesostructured materials in other morphologies than powders, e.g. monolithic materials and films, which are required for a variety of applications including, but not limited to, sensors (based on piezoelectric mass balances or surface acoustic wave devices), catalyst supports, (size- and shape-selective) filtration membranes or (opto)electronic devices. The current article is focused... 

Lithium-Niobate and Lithium-Tantalate Lithium-niobate (LN) and lithium-tantalate (LT) are uniaxial p3Toelectrics, having trigonal structure, with spontaneous polarization arising from asymmetrical displacement of lithium relative to the other ions. These materials Tc values are 1,210 °C and 620 °C, respectively. They are always produced commercially in single-crystal forms. Both are much used for surface acoustic wave devices (e.g., high-frequency filters), while LT is used for pyroelectric detection due to its large pyroelectric coefficient and low permittivity. 

Piezoelectricity is extensively utilized in the fabrication of various devices such as transducers, actuators, surface acoustic wave devices, frequency control and so on. In this chapter we describe the piezoelectric materials that are used, and various potential applications of piezoelectric materials [1-4]. 

Ferroelectrics and related materials are applied to elements of capacitor, piezoelectric transducer, pyroelectric temperature sensor, surface acoustic wave device and other devices. The recent important application is for non-volatile ferroelectric random access memories (NVFRAM). Many ferroelectric materials are used in the form of thin films. So far, most of the thin films of ferroelectric materials have been produced via gas phase. However, a great many number of works on sol-gel derived thin films of ferroelectrics have appeared since 15 years ago. 

Mass-sensitive devices transform the mass change at a specially modified surface into a change of a property of the support material. The mass change is caused by accumulation of the analyte. This group has two subgroups piezoelectric devices and surface acoustic wave devices. 

Interference from water was eliminated by calibrating with a redox peak that was not proton related. Gas phase analysis showed strong redox signals for TNT and DNT and demonstrated that ILs serve as a preconcentrator to improve the sensitivity of very low vapor pressure analytes. These examples demonstrate that the combination of IL materials and electrochemical transducers overcomes many obstacles in forming an effective sensor system. IL-electrochemical sensors are also well suited for miniaturization and can be fabricated with very low cost. In contrast to nonspecific transducers such as a surface acoustic wave device, arrays of amperomertic and EIS transducers allow a secondary perturbation (e.g., potential) that enhances selee-tivity and increases analytical information content without increasing the number of physical sensor elements. 

A chemical microsensor can be defined as an extremely small device that detects components in gases or Hquids (52—55). Ideally, such a sensor generates a response which either varies with the nature or concentration of the material or is reversible for repeated cycles of exposure. Of the many types of microsensors that have been described (56), three are the most prominent the chemiresistor, the bulk-wave piezoelectric quartz crystal sensor, and the surface acoustic wave (saw) device (57). 

A piezoelectric mass sensor is a device that measures the amount of material adsorbed on its surface by the effect of the adsorbed material on the propagation of acoustic waves. Piezoelectric devices work by converting electrical energy to mechanical energy. There are a number of different piezoelectric mass sensors. Thickness shear mode sensors measure the resonant frequency of a quartz crystal. Surface acoustic wave mode sensors measure the amplitude or time delay. Flexure mode devices measure the resonant frequency of a thin Si3N4 membrane. In shear horizontal acoustic plate mode sensors, the resonant frequency of a quartz crystal is measured. 

The addition of mass provides the means of transduction for many chemical sensors, including surface acoustic wave (SAW) devices, quartz crystal microbalances (QCM), and microcantilevers. In all these devices, the mass addition either perturbs the vibration, oscillations, or deflection within the transducer. The mode of transduction in an optical interferometer can also be linked to mass addition the sensor s response is altered by refractive index changes in the material being monitored. It is possible that this change can be elicited solely from refractive index changes without the addition of mass, although in sensing a particular... 

Devices based on piezoelectric crystals, which allow transduction between electrical and acoustic energies, have been constructed in a number of conrigurations for sensor applications and materials characterization. This cluqtter examines those devices most commonly utilized for sensing a( licatithickness-shear mode (TSM) resonator, the surface acoustic wave (SAW) device, the acoustic plate mode (APM) device, and the flexural plate wave (FPW) device. Each of these devices, shown schematically in Figure 3.1, uses a unique acoustic mode. 

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