Surface acoustic wave oscillator principle

The most commonly known oscillator sensors are bulk acoustic wave (BAW) and surface acoustic wave (SAW) devices. The BAW devices operate according to the Sauerbrey principle that very thin films on AT-cut crystals can be treated as equivalent mass changes of the crystal. The SAW devices can operate either on the Rayleigh wave propagation principle at solid thin-film boundaries [3] or as bulk wave devices [4]. 

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