Miniature High-Coupling Lithium Niobate Thin Film Bulk Acoustic Wave Resonators at 10-30 GHz

Thin film bulk acoustic wave resonators (FBARs) leveraging sputtered aluminum nitride (AlN) and scandium aluminum nitride (ScAlN) films, are a leading commercial solution for compact radio frequency (RF) filters in mobile devices. However, as 5G/6G bands extend beyond 6 GHz, achieving the required thinner piezoelectric film thicknesses below 500 nm presents significant challenges to high-quality sputtering, resulting in a moderate quality factor (Q). Additionally, AlN/ScAlN platforms are limited by moderate electromechanical coupling (k2), restricting bandwidth. More recently, ultra-thin transferred single-crystal piezoelectric lithium niobate (LN) has enabled lateral field excited resonators (XBAR) at 10-30 GHz. While these devices boast a high Q and k2, they face challenges with low capacitance density, large footprint, and significant electromagnetic (EM) effects. In this work, we implement a transferred LN on aluminum FBAR platform on sapphire wafers with an intermediate amorphous silicon layer without the need for a patterned bottom electrode.