A Love Wave Reflective Delay Line with Polymer Guiding Layer for Wireless Sensor Application

This paper presents an optimal design for a Love wave reflective delay line on 41o YX LiNbO₃ with a polymer guiding layer for wireless sensor applications. A theoretical model was established to describe the Love wave propagation along the larger piezoelectric substrate with polymer waveguide, and the lossy mechanism from the viscoelastic waveguide was discussed, which results in the optimal guiding layer thickness. Coupling of modes (COM) was used to determine the optimal design parameters of the reflective delay line structured by single phase unidirectional transducers (SPUDTs) and shorted grating reflectors. Using the network analyzer, the fabricated Love wave reflective delay line was characterized, high signal noise ratio (S/N), sharp reflection peaks, and few spurious noise between the peaks were found, and the measured result agrees well with the simulated one. Also, the optimal guiding layer thickness of 1.5~1.8μm was extracted experimentally, and it is consistent with the theoretical analysis.