APPLIED PHYSICS LETTERS 88, 223504 共2006兲

5 GHz surface acoustic wave devices based on aluminum nitride/diamond

layered structure realized using electron beam lithography
P. Kirsch, M. B. Assouar,a兲 and O. Elmazria
Laboratoire de Physique des Milieux Ionisés et Applications, Université Henri Poincaré Nancy I,
UMR 7040 CNRS, 54506 Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy, France
V. Mortet
Institute for Materials Research, Limburgs Universitair Centrum, Wetenschapspark 1-B-3590 Diepenbeek,
Belgium
P. Alnot
Laboratoire de Physique des Milieux Ionisés et Applications, Université Henri Poincaré Nancy I,
UMR 7040 CNRS, 54506 Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy, France
共Received 15 February 2006; accepted 3 May 2006; published online 30 May 2006兲
Very high frequency surface acoustic wave 共SAW兲 devices based on AlN/diamond layered structures
were fabricated by direct writing using e-beam lithography on the nucleation side of chemical vapor
deposition diamond. The interdigital transducers made in aluminum with resolutions down to
500 nm were patterned on AlN/diamond layered structure with an adapted technological process.
Experimental results show that the Rayleigh wave and the higher modes are generated. The
fundamental frequency around 5 GHz was obtained for this layered structure SAW device and
agrees well with calculated results from dispersion curves of propagation velocity and
electromechanical coupling coefficient. © 2006 American Institute of Physics.
关DOI: 10.1063/1.2208372兴

Because of the increasing volume of information, the
demand for larger band pass surface acoustic wave 共SAW兲
filters at high frequency has become important.1 The highest
frequency devices are expected from the diamond substrate/
piezoelectric material thin film layered structures because
diamond exhibits the highest acoustic wave velocity among
all materials.2 Aluminum nitride is one of the most promising
materials for high frequency SAW devices because of its
very high acoustic velocity among piezoelectric materials
and its fairly large piezoelectric coupling coefficient along
the c axis.3 In previous work, we have demonstrated experi-
mentally that the structure combining AlN piezoelectric film
and freestanding diamond layer exhibits a phase velocity
around 12 km/ s 共three times higher than that of conventional
piezoelectric material such as quartz兲.4,5 However, the oper-
ating frequencies of the realized devices remain under 2 GHz
due the limitation of photolithography resolution. In this
work, the high velocity of diamond is combined with the fine
resolution of the electron beam lithography 共EBL兲 to achieve
SAW devices operating at 5 GHz. We have used electron
beam lithography for rapid and versatile prototyping on
small substrates to obtain interdigital transducer 共IDT兲 struc-
tures in the submicron and nanometer ranges. We present
here the very high frequency SAW devices based on AIN/
diamond structures realized using e-beam lithography com-
bined with lift-off technique. The achievement of such de-
vice is not trivial. In fact, AIN/diamond layered structures
present a high electrical resistivity, involving charge accumu-
lation on the top surface by electrons injected during the
e-beam process, and consequently, the quasi-impossibility to
pattern the IDTs. The solution to this problem will be
presented.
a兲
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; electronic mail:
badreddine.assouar@lpmi.uhp-nancy.fr
Polycrystalline diamond films were grown on silicon
wafers by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition
共PECVD兲, using an ASTeX reactor operating at a microwave
power of 6000 W and a pressure of 163 103 Pa, with 3%
volume mixture of CH4 in H2.6 After deposition, the poly-
crystalline diamond layer was removed from the silicon sub-
strate by a wet chemical etching in a HNA solution
共HF : HNO3 : CH3COOH兲, leading to a freestanding diamond
layer with a flat surface at the nucleation side. The nucleation
side of the freestanding diamond surface is smooth with an
average root-mean-square roughness Rrms of 15 nm, deter-
mined by the nucleation density.
AlN thin films were prepared by reactive rf magnetron
sputtering on CVD diamond substrates. The growth experi-
mental conditions were published elsewhere.7,8 The growth
rate is 0.5 ␮m / h, and the thickness of films was measured by
scanning electron microscopy 共SEM兲 from the cross section
of structure. For the device considered in this study, the AlN
thickness was fixed to 1 ␮m.
The present sub-micron fabrication process was applied
to the fabrication of high frequency SAW devices. As the
diamond substrate is electrically rather insulating and in or-
der to overcome the charge accumulation on the top surface
of the substrate, a 10 nm layer of aluminum was deposited
on the top surface before the resist coating. The electrosen-
sitive resist used is a double layer consisting of two different
electrosensitive resists: a copolymer consisting of a mixture
of polymethyl methacrylate and methacrylic 共MMA兲 and
950 K polymethyl methacrylate 共PMMA兲 from Micro Chem.
Both resists are spun with the same experimental conditions.
The double layer of resist is used to facilitate the lift-off
process step afterwards. The lithography was done at an ac-
celeration voltage of 30 kV and a current of 55 pA. The
exposure dose for each structure strongly depends on its size

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223504-2 Kirsch et al.
FIG. 1. X-ray diffraction spectra of AlN/diamond layered structure.
and also on its geometrical aspect. The used doses range
from 250 up to 500 ␮C / cm2.
After exposure of the IDT structures, the resists’ devel-
opment was done by dipping the exposed substrate into a
methyl-isobuthyl-ketone:isopropanol 共1:3兲 solution for 30 s,
and then stopped by dipping the substrate into pure isopro-
panol for about 10 s. The resist double layer is now struc-
tured, and a 100 nm aluminum layer is deposited onto the
top surface by thermal evaporation. After the aluminum
deposition, a lift-off is performed to set the IDT structures
free. To remove the 10 nm aluminum layer, which had been
deposited at the very beginning of the fabrication process for
charge evacuation purposes during the e-beam lithography,
the substrate is placed into a H3PO4 / HNO3 solution. This
solution selectively etches the aluminum, which is done until
complete removal of the very thin charge evacuation layer.
By proceeding this way, we obtain cleanly developed IDT
structures.
Figure 1 shows the x-ray diffraction 共XRD兲 spectrum in
␪-2␪ scan mode of AlN film deposited on nucleation side of
CVD diamond substrate. One can see that the AlN film is
highly oriented on 共002兲, corresponding to the c axis perpen-
FIG. 2. Atomic force microscopy characterization showed IDT periodicity FIG. 3. Frequency response of AlN/diamond layered structure SAW device,
and its thickness uniformity.
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Appl. Phys. Lett. 88, 223504 共2006兲
TABLE I. Calculated values of electromechanical coupling coefficient and
phase velocity corresponding of the realized SAW device.
Mode 0 Mode 1 Mode 2
K2 共%兲 0.022 1.36 0.087
Velocity 共km s−1兲 6.3 9.4 11.2
dicular to the surface. We can observe also the peak corre-
sponding to 共111兲 CVD diamond orientation, which indicates
that diamond substrate is highly oriented.
Figure 2 illustrates the atomic force microscopy 共AFM兲
characterizations which present the results of all the process
improvements that have been applied. One can observe a
very regular spatial periodicity of the IDT fingers with
500 nm finger width and a very regular IDT thickness.
Concerning the layered structures, the phase velocity and
the electromechanical coupling coefficient 共K2兲 are strongly
depending on the normalized thickness value 共kh兲 of the pi-
ezoelectric film 共AlN in our case兲 and on the considered
mode of surface acoustic wave. k is the wave vector modulus
共k = 2␲ / ␭兲, and hAlN is the AlN film thickness. However,
the dispersion curves of K2 as well as those of phase velocity
could be precisely determined by calculation.9 In the case of
our structure, IDT/AlN/diamond, the higher values of K2 are
obtained in a wide range of khAlN 共2–5兲 for mode 1 共also
called the Sezawa mode兲. Then, to combine high electrome-
chanical coupling coefficient and high velocity, the normal-
ized thickness was fixed to khAlN = 3.14 共hAlN = 1 ␮m and ␭
= 2 ␮m兲. The expected values predicted by calculation are
summarized in Table I, for modes 0, 1, and 2 of the surface
waves.5
The frequency characterization was carried out using
Agilent 8752A network analyzer. The characterized SAW fil-
ter presented here is the device realized with IDTs patterned
with 500 nm finger resolution. This IDT resolution involves
the wavelength ␭ of 2 ␮m. Figure 3 shows the frequency
response of this SAW device fabricated with spatial IDT pe-
riodicity of ␭ = 2 ␮m. One can observe the good filtering
performances of this AIN/diamond SAW device: relatively
low insertion loss 共less than 34 dB兲 at the center frequency
共f 0 = 4.6 GHz兲 and more than 20 dB of stop band rejection.
Note that no particular design of IDTs was performed to
in which we can observe the fundamental of mode 1 around 5 GHz.
223504-3 Kirsch et al. Appl. Phys. Lett. 88, 223504 共2006兲

1
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