Na0.5K0.5NbO3 Film Microwave Varactors

Abstract

Na0.5K0.5NbO3 (NKN) and Pb(Zr0.53Ti0.47)O3 (PZT) films have been grown by rf-magnetron sputtering and pulsed laser deposition techniques, correspondingly, on sapphire (Al2O3-0112, r-cut), quartz (Y+36°-cut) and YAlO3 + 1% Nd (Nd:YAlO3-001) single crystal substrates with Interdigital Capacitor (IDC) of Coplanar Waveguide (CPW) structure. Photolithography and metal lift-off technique was used for processing of the tunable microwave capacitor. Microwave network analyzer with G-S-G Picoprobe and probe station performed microwave measurement with external DC bias. NKN film interdigital capacitors on Nd:YAlO3 show superior performance in the microwave range from 1 to 40 GHz. Within this range, the voltage tunability (40 V, 200 kV/cm) was about 29%, loss tangent ∼ 0.13, K-factor from 152% @10 GHz to 46% @40 GHz, voltage independent C p was about 230 fF, tan δ p changes from 0.14 @10 GHz to 0.36 @40 GHz, real and imaginary part of interconnect impedance increases with frequency from 0.13 Ω @10 GHz to 0.50 Ω @40 GHz and from 1.9 Ω @10 GHz to 5.9 Ω @40 GHz respectively.