Focusing Surface-Acoustic-Wave Resonators on Thin-Film Lithium Niobate with Transverse-Mode Suppression

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel design of focusing surface-acoustic-wave resonators on thin-film lithium niobate that suppress transverse modes, achieving highly confined, near-diffraction-limited acoustic waves for hybrid quantum systems.

Contribution

It introduces a single-mode focusing SAW resonator on thin-film lithium niobate with contour electrodes and apodization to suppress transverse modes, enhancing mode confinement.

Findings

Achieved near-diffraction-limited focusing of SAW modes.

Successfully suppressed higher-order transverse modes.

Demonstrated potential for hybrid quantum system applications.

Abstract

Surface-acoustic-wave (SAW) resonators are a promising platform for constructing hybrid quantum systems, where confined acoustic waves enable strong interaction with various physical systems. Focusing SAW resonators, reducing mode volume while suppressing diffraction losses, have recently been investigated for application in such hybrid systems. However, the resonator leads to additional transverse-mode resonances, which cause undesired responses. In this work, we develop single-mode focusing SAW resonators on a thin-film lithium niobate on sapphire. A film thinner than the SAW wavelength allows a highly confined acoustic-wave mode to be localized on the substrate surface. By using contoured electrodes following a two-dimensional Gaussian beam shape, we make the SAW mode focused to nearly a diffraction-limited and confirm it via optical imaging. The apodization technique applied to the interdigitated transducer electrodes suppresses the excitation of higher-order transverse modes.