Lateral field excited Y-cut langasite bulk acoustic wave sensor

Previous studies have shown that lateral field excited (LFE) devices on AT-cut quartz are sensitive to liquid electrical property changes. AT-cut quartz LFE devices have low piezoelectric coupling factors. To further improve electrical sensitivities of LFE sensors, it is necessary to study LFE sensors based on other piezoelectric materials with higher coupling factors. In this paper, LFE sensors on Y-cut langasite, which has twice the higher piezoelectric coupling factor of AT-cut quartz, are investigated. Several Y-cut langasite LFE sensors are designed, fabricated, and tested. The experimental results show that the devices are over 6 times more sensitive to liquid conductivity changes and about 2.5 times more sensitive to liquid permittivity changes compared to AT-cut quartz LFE devices. It was also found that the Y-cut langasite LFE devices are about 1.3 times more sensitive to changes in liquid acoustic viscosity compared to the AT-cut quartz LFE devices. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.