10.1109/ULTSYM.2012.
0202
FEM simulation of BAW/SAW and SAW/BAW
conversions in gratings on the surface of
half-infinite substrates
Alexander Darinskii Manfred Weihnacht
Institute of Crystallography RAS IFW Dresden
Leninskii pr. 59, Moscow P.O. 27 01 16, D-01171
119333 Russia Dresden, Germany
Email: ADar@ns.crys.ras.ru Email: whn@ifw-dresden.de
Abstract—FEM simulations of the SAW-BAW conversion in
gratings of finite length are carried out for Si substrate. The
grating is created from rectangular grooves or strips (Al, Cu).
When simulating the SAW generation, we determine the SAW
amplitude and investigate its dependence on the frequency and
the polarization of the incident BAW, the length of the grating,
the geometrical sizes of grooves/strips. As applied to BAW
irradiation, the dependence is found of the central spectral peak
height and shape on the frequency of the incident SAW as well
as on the thickness, the width, and the number of grooves/strips.
I. I NTRODUCTION
A periodic grating created on the surface of a crystal couples
SAWs to BAWs. On the one hand, this effect often plays a
negative role in SAW devices, leading to losses in IDTs and
reflectors [1], [2]. On the other hand, it can be exploited to
generate SAW by an incident BAW or to convert SAW into
BAW if it is required to transmit an acoustic signal from
one surface to the opposite one [2], [3]. Such transducers
are especially attractive in case of non-piezoelectric substrates
where IDTs cannot be used straightforwardly.
The SAW-BAW conversion can be analyzed on the ba-
sis of the COM theory [3]-[5]. This approach presupposes
that the perturbation brought in by a single period of the
grating is small and the length of the grating is large. The
COM parameters are either estimated with the aid of some
approximate analytic calculations or extracted from numerical
computations. In the latter case, the grating is considered to
be infinitely long so that the computations can be restricted to
only one period of the grating [6].
In the present paper we numerically study the SAW-BAW
coupling under grating areas of finite length on the half-infinite
substrate. It is not supposed that the roughness effects weakly
the wave propagation within one period of the grating. The
simulations are fully based on FEM. Given the BAW or SAW
incident on the grating, we directly find the amplitude of
the generated SAW or BAW, respectively. Note that FEM
has already been used by us in order to investigate the
SAW reflection from single defects on the surface of non-
piezoelectric and piezoelectric half-infinite substrates [7]-[9].
978-1-4673-4562-0/12/$31.00 ©2012 IEEE 811
Hagen Schmidt
IFW Dresden
P.O. 27 01 16, D-01171
Dresden, Germany
Email: h.schmidt@ifw-dresden.de
II. G ENERAL REMARKS
When simulating the wave propagation in an unbounded
region, such as the half-infinite substrate, it is required to
truncate the computational domain in a way excluding the
occurrence of parasitic fields that could arise because of
artificial boundaries. A possible solution of this problem is the
use of perfectly matched layers (PML). It is a medium where
the wave propagation is governed by nearly the same equations
and constitutive connections as in the actual medium. The
difference is in that a special damping factors are introduced
with the aim of suppressing the parasitic fields [10].
a)
b)
5 5
Fig. 1. Computational domain. 1-3 - PML, 4 - substrate, from 5 till (5+n)
- strips. Lines AB and AE correspond to x = 0 and z = 0, respectively.
III. S TATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
We consider a substrate of symmetry m3m (silicon). It
occupies the half-space z < 0. The infinitely long grooves,
or strips, are parallel to the y-axis. The plane bulk wave
exciting a SAW is incident from the interior of the substrate
perpendicular to its surface. The generated SAW propagates
along the positive and negative directions of the x-axis.
Therefore the acoustic fields will be dependent only on the
x- and z-coordinates.
The x- and z- axes of the current coordinate system are
directed along [100] and [001] crystallographic directions,
2012 IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium Proceedings
respectively. Hence, in view of the symmetry properties of
acoustic fields [9], the components ui (x, z) of the displace-
ment and the components σij (x, z) of the stress tensor i, j =
1, 3, satisfying the wave equation and Hooke’s law are split
into two groups of different parity in x. Hence, it is sufficient
to perform simulations within the area z ≤ 0, x ≥ 0 (Fig.
1) provided that one of the following two sets of boundary
conditions are put on the edge x = 0 (line AB in Fig. 1):
a) u1 = σ13 = 0; b) u3 = σ11 = 0. (1)
The incident BAW is polarized either longitudinally or trans-
versely along the x-axis. In the former case the conditions (1a)
are applied. In the latter case (1b) must be used.
In studying the SAW to BAW transformation, it is assumed
that a SAW is incident along the x axis perpendicular to the
grating. In this case the field of this SAW is decomposed
into two parts usaw1 and usaw2 whose components are x-
odd or x-even functions so that the computations are executed
twice in the domain shown in Fig. 1, where usaw1 and then
usaw2 play the role of source fields. The spatial spectra
of irradiated quasi longitudinal and quasi transverse BAWs,
i.e., the dependence of their amplitudes on the tangential
component of the wave vector, are also obtained by DFT
carried out inside the substrate at certain depth (see [11] for
more details). To single out BAWs of different branches, an Fig. 2. Magnitude of the z component of the displacement of SAW vs.
orthogonality relation obeyed by plane modes in half-infinite frequency of longitudinal (a) transverse (b) BAW. Groove depth - 0.1λ.
substrates is used. Groove width - 0.5λ. Different number of grooves.

IV. R ESULTS OF COMPUTATIONS

A. BAW to SAW conversion
Fig. 2 shows the dependence of the z-component of dis-
placement in SAW outside the grating area on the frequency
f of the longitudinal BAW (Fig. 2a) and the transverse BAW
(Fig. 2b) at different length of the transducer. The grating with
a period λ is composed of rectangular grooves. The width of
grooves is a = 0.5λ, their depth is h = 0.1λ.
It is seen that the SAW amplitude can substantially exceed
the amplitude of the BAW even if the number of grooves is
not big and grooves are not deep. The amplitude-frequency
response is clearly asymmetric with respect to the frequency Fig. 3. Maximum of the z component of the displacement of SAW vs. the
number of grooves. BAW is polarized longitudinally. Groove width - 0.5λ.
f0 corresponding to the exact synchronism for the flat surface Different groove depths. Similar dependence holds for transverse BAW.
(λf0 /vsaw = 1, where vsaw is the SAW velocity on the
flat surface). In turn, the central peaks are asymmetric with
respect to the frequencies fmax , where the maxima of the
SAW amplitude occur. The asymmetry grows with the grating With increasing the groove number the width of the peak
length. Comparing the shape of curves in Fig. 2a and Fig. decreases and the maximum grows. However, the dependence
2b, it can be said with some reservations that the amplitude- of maximum amplitude on the number of grooves changes
frequency responses for the longitudinal BAW are mirror with the groove depth (Fig. 3). Such a restriction on the
reflected with respect to curves describing the amplitude of SAW amplitude is due to a strong Bragg interaction between
the SAW excited by the transverse BAW. It is of interest to SAWs propagating along the opposite directions inside the
notice that the frequency responses of analogous shapes for the grating constructed from grooves of non-sinusoidal shape. The
longitudinal and transverse BAWs in quartz are obtained with transducer starts to play the role of a resonator not allowing
the help of the COM theory [6]. The COM parameters were SAWs to leave the grating area. Note that this effect has been
extracted from computations performed under assumption that discussed in Ref. [4], where the BAW/SAW conversion for
the grating is infinite. Accordingly, the transducers considered purely shear modes, i.e. polarized along the y-axis in our
in [6] were very large and included 600 − 2000 grooves. notation, is considered on the basis of the COM theory.

812 2012 IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium Proceedings


a)
b)
Fig. 4. Magnitude of the z component of the displacement of SAW vs.
frequency of longitudinal (a) and transverse (b) BAW. The grating comprises
20 Al or Cu strips. Period - λ, strip width - 0.5λ. Different strip thickness.
The frequency dependence of the amplitude of SAW excited
in the grating composed of metallic strips is depicted in Fig.
4. It is seen that again thick strips are not required to generate
SAW with amplitude exceeding the amplitude of BAW. Given
the material of strips, an optimal thickness exists at which one
can reach the maximum of the SAW amplitude. Besides, like
in case of groove gratings, the frequency-amplitude charac-
teristics corresponding to the longitudinal and the transverse
waves can be said to be of mutually mirror reflected shapes.
The upper limit of the SAW amplitude can be estimated us-
 the energy conservation law. One obtains |Asaw |/|Ainc | <
ing
πvbaw pN/vsaw , where N is the number of periods in the
grating, vbaw is the BAW velocity, and p is a typical decay
factor. In the case under consideration we can take p = 0.5
√ vbaw ≈ 2vsaw so that |Asaw |/|Ainc | will be of the order
and
2 N at most.
B. SAW to BAW conversion
As a demonstration of typical features of the SAW to BAW
conversion, we give results of simulations for gratings of
cooper rectangular strips. The BAW amplitudes vs. the x-
component of the wave vector are shown in Fig. 5. Changing
the SAW frequency shifts the values of kx,max corresponding
to the positions of the amplitude main maxima. The maximum
813
values of amplitudes vary but the shape of the peaks remains
intact. Besides, the kx,max values of longitudinal and trans-
verse waves remain practically equal. A slight discrepancy
between this values can be attributed to numerical errors.
However, the directions of propagation of the longitudinal and
the transverse plane waves with equal kx,max are different
because of the difference in phase velocities (note that BAW
are not purely longitudinal or transverse unless kx = 0).
Fig. 5. Amplitudes of the plane longitudinal and transverse BAWs irradiated
by the grating of 20 copper strips at different frequencies vs. x-component
of the wave vector. Frequencies - f = 0.94vsaw /λ (curves 1), f = vsaw /λ
(curves 2), f = 1.05vsaw /λ (curves 3). Period of the grating - λ. Strip width
- 0.5λ, thickness - 0.05λ.
The curve describing the spectrum of longitudinal waves at
a frequency fl is reproduced in Fig. 6 together with the curve
showing the magnitude of the Fourier transform of the function
g(x) = 0.0585|Asaw | exp(iγ2x/λ), |x| ≤ 10λ, g(x) =
0, |x| > 10λ, where |Asaw | is the surface wave amplitude
and γ = 0.02 (put it in other words, the dashed curves in Fig.
6 represents the absolute value of the sinc-function varying
as | sin ξ/ξ| with argument ξ). The central peaks of the two
curves practically coincide. Therefore one can say that, as far
as spectral amplitudes are concerned, the irradiation of the
grating bears resemblance to the irradiation of a piezoelectric
plate of the size equal to the length of the grating. Of course, it
should be specified that this plate generates a bounded acoustic
beam of rectangular shape and that the plate is inclined with
respect to the z-axis for the maximum to be shifted away from
kx = 0.
Note that the phases of plane bulk waves irradiated by the
grating are not constant, unlike the phase of the transform of
the function g(x). Despite this fact we consider that the plate
is a convenient ”reference point” in discussing the bulk wave
irradiation by gratings. A rough estimation of the maximum
possible amplitude |Apl | of the equivalent ”plate” vibrations
follows from the energy conservation law: |Apl |/|Asaw√| <

vsaw /4πvbaw pN . In our case |Apl |/|Asaw | < 0.3/ N ,
where we put p = 0.5 and vbaw ≈ 2vsaw .
The grating length hardly affects the position of main
maxima. On the contrary, the height of peaks suffer changes
depending on the strip thickness (Fig. 7). If the strip thickness
2012 IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium Proceedings

Fig. 6. Amplitudes of the plane longitudinal BAWs irradiated by the grating
(solid) and | sin ξ/ξ|-function corresponding to a plate transducer of 20λ
length (dashed) vs. x-component of the wave vector. The grating comprises
20 cooper strips of width 0.5λ and thickness 0.05λ. Period - λ.
1
max
2
3 VI. ACKNOWLEDGMENT
N
Fig. 7. Maximum amplitude of the longitudinal and the transverse bulk
waves vs. number of Cu strips N . Different strip thicknesses, h = 0.025λ
(curves 1), and h = 0.05λ (curves 2), and h = 0.1λ (curves 3). Period - λ.
Frequency - f = vsaw /λ.
is h = 0.025λ, then |Abulk |max steadily and significantly
increases with the number of strips N . Within the whole range
of N the central peaks are well approximated by the sinc-
function of the corresponding width. When strips are 0.05λ
thick, the |Abulk |max values initially increase with the number
of strips (curves 2), the shape of the peaks being very close to
the sinc-function. But after N = 40 the increase of |Abulk |max
slows down and |Abulk |max is almost constant if N > 60. In
parallel, the peak shape begins to be different from the sinc-
function dependence. It is of interest that the peak shape, like
|Abulk |max , does not change at N > 60. The reason for such
modifications of spectra is that reflection from individual strips
appear to be so strong that the surface wave turns back not
transmitting across the whole grating. At last, in case of 0.1λ
thick strips, the spectral amplitudes |Abulk |max are constant
(curves 3 in Fig. 7). The peak shape does not change as well
and does not resemble a sinc-function.
V. C ONCLUSION
Our simulations show that gratings involving relatively
small number of periods can efficiently convert BAWs to
814
SAWs and vice versa. Grooves/strips do not need to be
deep/thick. The polarization dependence of the BAW to SAW
conversion is stipulated by the bulk wave generation within
the grating. The optimum conditions for the SAW generation
set up as a result of the interplay between the generation of
SAW and of BAW so that these conditions are polarization
dependent, since so is the conversion of the incident bulk wave
into bulk waves.
If the strip thickness, or the groove depth, and the grating
length are within a certain range of values, then the amplitude
distribution within the central maximum of the spectrum of
BAWs generated by a SAW is approximated by a function
of the type | sin ξ/ξ| corresponding to the irradiation of an
acoustic bounded beam of rectangular profile by a ”plate” of
length equal to the grating length. The amplitude of vibrations
of the equivalent ”plate” reaches 2 − 5% of the amplitude
of the incident SAW. These amplitudes are comparable with
the theoretical maximum. The maximum amplitudes of the
longitudinal and the transverse waves can be both nearly
identical and significantly different, for instance, depending
on the frequency. Note that changing the frequency shifts the
direction of the maximum bulk wave irradiation but does not
perturb the shape of the spectral peak.
A. Darinskii thanks Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and
Russian Foundation for Basic Research for financial support.
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2012 IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium Proceedings