Thermally tunable surface acoustic wave devices

摘要

In accordance with the invention, the piezoelectric layer of a SAW device is mechanically coupled to a substrate of temperature-sensitive material having a large coefficient of thermal expansion or contraction. In a preferred embodiment, the temperature-sensitive material is a nickel/titanium alloy having high negative coefficient of thermal expansion of about -200x10-6. The frequency of the device can be tuned by changing the temperature of operation.