Surface Acoustic Wave Devices Printed at the Aerosol-Jet Resolution Limit

Abstract

Leveraging advances in additive manufacturing to implement radio frequency sensor technology has gained interest in recent years, motivated in part by the prospect of cost-effective, multi parameter sensing. Herein, aerosol-jet (AJ) printed surface acoustic wave (SAW) devices on LiNbO3 with features at the resolution limit of AJ printing are reported. Compared to previously reported work, these devices demonstrate improved agreement between SAW designed and measured operating frequency at finer printed feature size, increased operating fundamental frequency, and are the first reported exploitation of harmonics of printed SAW sensor devices. Additionally, the application of printed SAWs as electrical resistance sensors and temperature sensors is demonstrated.