Velocity surface measurements for ZnO films over {001}-cut GaAs

Abstract

A potential application for a piezoelectric film deposited on a GaAs substrate is the monolithic integration of surface acoustic wave (SAW) devices with GaAs electronics. Knowledge of the SAW properties of the filmed structure is critical for the optimum design of such devices. In this article, the measurements of the velocity surface, which directly affects the SAW diffraction, on the bare and metallized ZnO/SiO2 or Si3N4/GaAs {001}-cut samples are reported using two different techniques: (1) knife-edge laser probe, (2) line-focus-beam scanning acoustic microscope. Comparisons, such as measurement accuracy and tradeoffs, between the former (dry) and the latter (wet) method are given. It is found that near the 〈110〉 propagation direction the autocollimating SAW property of the bare GaAs changes into a noncollimating one for the layered structure, but a reversed phenomenon exists near the 〈100〉 direction. The passivation layer of SiO2 or Si3N4 (<0.2 μm thick) and the metallization layer change the relative velocity but do not significantly affect the velocity surface. On the other hand, the passivation layer reduces the propagation loss by 0.5–1.3 dB/μs at 240 MHz depending upon the ZnO film thickness. Our SAW propagation measurements agree well with theoretical calculations. We have also obtained the anisotropy factors for samples with ZnO films of 1.6, 2.8, and 4.0 μm thickness. Comparisons concerning the piezoelectric coupling and acoustic loss between dc triode and rf magnetron sputtered ZnO films are provided.