Investigating the change in surface acoustic wave velocity due to the change in adhesion of a SU-8 thin film using a SU-8/AlN/Si SAW sensor

Abstract This study investigates the change in surface acoustic wave (SAW) phase velocity due to the change in adhesion of a SU-8 thin film using an Aluminum Nitride (AlN)/Silicon (Si) SAW sensor. The variation in the stress field at the SU-8/AlN interface at different levels of SU-8 adhesion is also investigated and correlated to the change in SAW phase velocity. A theoretical model is developed to determine the change in wave dispersion profile due to the change in adhesion of the SU-8 film on the surface of the AlN/Si sensor. The interface of the SU-8/AlN layers is represented by a layer of massless springs with interface stiffness K (N/m 3 ). The results illustrate that as the adhesion of the SU-8 film weakens on the surface of the AlN/Si SAW sensor the velocity dispersion profiles fluctuate. The calculated stress field at the SU-8/AlN interface also fluctuates because the weakened interface cannot sustain the increased stress due to the confinement of the wave near the interface. Therefore, the mode of wave propagation varies between the perfect bond case where the SU-8 layer is perfectly bonded to the AlN/Si surface and when the SU-8 is completely de-bonded. Four SAW sensor designs operating in the frequency range of 84–208 MHz are developed to measure the shift in the center frequency values and the corresponding change in SAW phase velocities due to the change in adhesion of the SU-8 layer. The adhesion of the SU-8 film on the surface of the AlN/Si SAW sensor is changed by using different adhesion layers. The adhesion layers used are a gold film and an omnicoat coated gold film. Omnicoat is an adhesion promoter used to improve the adhesion of SU-8. The results illustrate that as the adhesion of the SU-8 film improves for the sensors with omnicoat the wave velocity shifts to a lower value. The wave velocity values are fitted with the wave dispersion profiles for different values of the interface spring stiffness K . The interface spring stiffness values for the SAW sensors with omnicoat coated gold and gold films are 8.1×10 9 N/m 3 and 7.95×10 9 N/m 3 , respectively. The use of omnicoat improves the adhesion of the SU-8 film and corresponds to a higher interface spring stiffness value. The stress and displacement fields generated in the SU-8 layer for different values of the interface spring stiffness K are plotted. The results illustrate that as the adhesion of the SU-8 layer improves the stress transmitted to the SU-8 layer increases and the wave is more confined in the SU-8 layer, which justifies the drop in wave velocity since the Rayleigh wave velocity in SU-8 is much lower in comparison to AlN and Silicon; 1166, 5600, 5000 m/s, respectively.