3.4 GHz composite thin film bulk acoustic wave resonator for miniaturized atomic clocks

Journal Article · Mon Jun 27 00:00:00 EDT 2011 · Applied Physics Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3603944· OSTI ID:21518507

Artieda, Alvaro; Muralt, Paul ^[1]

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1. Laboratoire de Ceramique, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), 1015 Lausanne (Switzerland)

Triple layer SiO{sub 2}/AlN/SiO{sub 2} composite thin film bulk acoustic wave resonators (TFBARs) were studied for applications in atomic clocks. The TFBAR's were tuned to 3.4 GHz, corresponding to half the hyperfine splitting of the ground state of rubidium {sup 87}Rb atoms. The quality factor (Q) was equal to 2300 and the temperature coefficient of the resonance frequency f{sub r} amounted to 1.5 ppm/K. A figure of merit Qf{sub r} of {approx} 0.8 x 10{sup 13} Hz and a thickness mode coupling factor of 1% were reached. Such figures are ideal for frequency sources in an oscillator circuit that tracks the optical signal in atomic clocks.

• OSTI ID: 21518507
• Journal Information: Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 98, Issue 26; Other Information: DOI: 10.1063/1.3603944; (c) 2011 American Institute of Physics; ISSN 0003-6951
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
ALUMINIUM NITRIDES
ATOMIC CLOCKS
COMPOSITE MATERIALS
COUPLING
GHZ RANGE
INTERACTIONS
LAYERS
OSCILLATORS
QUALITY FACTOR
RESONANCE
RESONATORS
RUBIDIUM 87
SILICON OXIDES
SOUND WAVES
TEMPERATURE COEFFICIENT
THICKNESS
THIN FILMS
ALUMINIUM COMPOUNDS
BETA DECAY RADIOISOTOPES
BETA-MINUS DECAY RADIOISOTOPES
CHALCOGENIDES
DIMENSIONLESS NUMBERS
DIMENSIONS
ELECTRONIC EQUIPMENT
EQUIPMENT
FILMS
FREQUENCY RANGE
INTERMEDIATE MASS NUCLEI
ISOTOPES
MATERIALS
NITRIDES
NITROGEN COMPOUNDS
NUCLEI
ODD-EVEN NUCLEI
OXIDES
OXYGEN COMPOUNDS
PNICTIDES
RADIOISOTOPES
REACTIVITY COEFFICIENTS
RUBIDIUM ISOTOPES
SILICON COMPOUNDS
YEARS LIVING RADIOISOTOPES