Toward Ka Band Acoustics: Lithium Niobate Asymmetrical Mode Piezoelectric MEMS Resonators

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel class of lithium niobate MEMS resonators operating in the Ka band, achieving high frequencies and quality factors suitable for 5G wireless filtering applications.

Contribution

It demonstrates the first use of asymmetric Lamb-wave modes in lithium niobate MEMS resonators reaching Ka band frequencies with high quality factors.

Findings

Resonant frequencies of 21.4 and 29.9 GHz achieved

Electromechanical coupling of 1.5% and 0.94% demonstrated

Highest reported quality factors for piezoelectric MEMS at this frequency range

Abstract

This work presents a new class of micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) resonators toward Ka band (26.5-40GHz) for fifth-generation (5G) wireless communication. Resonant frequencies of 21.4 and 29.9 GHz have been achieved using the fifth and seventh order asymmetric (A5 and A7) Lamb-wave modes in a suspended Z-cut lithium niobate (LiNbO3) thin film. The fabricated device has demonstrated an electromechanical coupling (kt2) of 1.5% and 0.94% and extracted mechanical Qs of 406 and 474 for A5 and A7 respectively. The quality factors are the highest reported for piezoelectric MEMS resonators operating at this frequency range. The demonstrated performance has shown the strong potential of LiNbO3 asymmetric mode devices to meet the front-end filtering requirements of 5G.