Energy trapping of thickness-extensional modes in thin film bulk acoustic wave filters

This paper presents the thickness-extensional vibration of a rectangular piezoelectric thin film bulk acoustic wave filter with two pairs of electrodes symmetrically deposited on the center of the zinc oxide film. The two-dimensional scalar differential equations which were first derived to describe in-plane vibration distribution by Tiersten and Stevens are employed. The Ritz method with trigonometric functions as basis functions is used based on a variational formulation developed in our previous paper. Free vibration resonant frequencies and corresponding modes are obtained. The modes may separate into symmetric and antisymmetric ones for such a structurally symmetric filter. Trapped modes with vibrations mainly under the driving electrodes are exhibited. The six corner-type regions of the filter neglected by Tiersten and Stevens for an approximation are taken into account in our analysis. Results show that their approximation can lead to an inaccuracy on the order of dozens of ppm for the fundamental mode, which is quite significant in filter operation and application.