AUTHOR=Ma Rui , Liu Weiguo , Sun Xueping , Zhou Shun 

TITLE=In-Situ Process and Simulation of High-Performance Piezoelectric-on-Silicon Substrate for SAW Sensor

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Materials

VOLUME=8

YEAR=2021

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/materials/articles/10.3389/fmats.2021.678658

DOI=10.3389/fmats.2021.678658

ISSN=2296-8016

ABSTRACT=<p>This paper studied the manufacturing process of Piezoelectric-on-Silicon (POS) substrate which integrates 128° <italic>Y</italic>–<italic>X</italic> Lithium niobate thin film and silicon wafer using Smart-Cut technology. The blistering and exfoliation processes of the He as-implanted LN crystal under different annealing temperatures are observed by the <italic>in-situ</italic> method. Unlike the conventional polishing process, the stripping mechanism of the Lithium niobate thin film is changed by controlling annealing temperature, which can improve the surface morphology of the peeling lithium niobate thin film. We prepared the 128° <italic>Y</italic>–<italic>X</italic> POS substrate with high single-crystal Lithium niobate thin film and surface roughness of 3.91 nm through Benzocyclobutene bonding. After simulating the surface acoustic wave (SAW) characteristics of the POS substrate, the results demonstrate that the Benzocyclobutene layer not only performs as a bonding layer but also can couple more vibrations into the LN thin film. The electromechanical coupling coefficient of the POS substrate is up to 7.59% in the Rayleigh mode when <italic>h</italic><sub>LN</sub>/<italic>λ</italic> is 0.3 and <italic>h</italic><sub>BCB</sub>/<italic>λ</italic> is 0.1. Therefore, as a high-performance substrate material, the POS substrate has proved to be an efficient method to miniaturize and integrate the SAW sensor.</p>