Nonlinear Characterization of Thin-Film LiNbO3 Acoustic Filters

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Barrera, Omar, Bosworth, Bryan T., Anusorn, Taran, Huynh, Kenny, Anderson, Ian, Jungwirth, Nicholas R., Liao, Michael, Cho, Sinwoo, Kramer, Jack, Matto, Lezli, Goorsky, Mark S., Orloff, Nathan D., Lu, Ruochen
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Barrera, Omar
Bosworth, Bryan T.
Anusorn, Taran
Huynh, Kenny
Anderson, Ian
Jungwirth, Nicholas R.
Liao, Michael
Cho, Sinwoo
Kramer, Jack
Matto, Lezli
Goorsky, Mark S.
Orloff, Nathan D.
Lu, Ruochen
author_facet Barrera, Omar
Bosworth, Bryan T.
Anusorn, Taran
Huynh, Kenny
Anderson, Ian
Jungwirth, Nicholas R.
Liao, Michael
Cho, Sinwoo
Kramer, Jack
Matto, Lezli
Goorsky, Mark S.
Orloff, Nathan D.
Lu, Ruochen
contents Compact, high-performance components in millimeter-wave (mmWave) communication systems demand new acoustic filter technology at increasingly higher frequencies. Among various promising mmWave platforms, first-order antisymmetric (A1) mode laterally excited bulk acoustic resonators (XBARs) in thin-film lithium niobate (LiNbO3) have perhaps the most impressive linear performance. Despite these advances, there are few reports of nonlinear characterization of LiNbO3 filters at mmWaves. Here, we address this gap by developing a new nonlinear methodology for high-frequency filters. The result is a methodology for performing power-dependent S-parameters and third-order intermodulation (IMD3) measurements. To test our methodology, we fabricated filters on transferred single-crystal LiNbO3 films on sapphire (Al2O3) and silicon (Si) substrates with amorphous silicon (aSi) sacrificial layer. At 21.8 GHz, the filters on Al2O3 demonstrated an insertion loss of 1.48 dB, a 3 dB fractional bandwidth (FBW) of 17.7%, and in-band third-order input intercept points (IIP3) of 50.8 dBm. At 21.6 GHz, the filters on silicon demonstrated an insertion loss of 2.47 dB, a 3 dB FBW of 18.6%, and in-band IIP3 of 46.5 dBm. The nonlinear results conclusively show that thermal stability and passband distortion improved on the Al2O3 substrate, confirming that substrate selection plays a pivotal role in mitigating nonlinearity in acoustic front-end modules.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_11717
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Nonlinear Characterization of Thin-Film LiNbO3 Acoustic Filters
Barrera, Omar
Bosworth, Bryan T.
Anusorn, Taran
Huynh, Kenny
Anderson, Ian
Jungwirth, Nicholas R.
Liao, Michael
Cho, Sinwoo
Kramer, Jack
Matto, Lezli
Goorsky, Mark S.
Orloff, Nathan D.
Lu, Ruochen
Signal Processing
Compact, high-performance components in millimeter-wave (mmWave) communication systems demand new acoustic filter technology at increasingly higher frequencies. Among various promising mmWave platforms, first-order antisymmetric (A1) mode laterally excited bulk acoustic resonators (XBARs) in thin-film lithium niobate (LiNbO3) have perhaps the most impressive linear performance. Despite these advances, there are few reports of nonlinear characterization of LiNbO3 filters at mmWaves. Here, we address this gap by developing a new nonlinear methodology for high-frequency filters. The result is a methodology for performing power-dependent S-parameters and third-order intermodulation (IMD3) measurements. To test our methodology, we fabricated filters on transferred single-crystal LiNbO3 films on sapphire (Al2O3) and silicon (Si) substrates with amorphous silicon (aSi) sacrificial layer. At 21.8 GHz, the filters on Al2O3 demonstrated an insertion loss of 1.48 dB, a 3 dB fractional bandwidth (FBW) of 17.7%, and in-band third-order input intercept points (IIP3) of 50.8 dBm. At 21.6 GHz, the filters on silicon demonstrated an insertion loss of 2.47 dB, a 3 dB FBW of 18.6%, and in-band IIP3 of 46.5 dBm. The nonlinear results conclusively show that thermal stability and passband distortion improved on the Al2O3 substrate, confirming that substrate selection plays a pivotal role in mitigating nonlinearity in acoustic front-end modules.
title Nonlinear Characterization of Thin-Film LiNbO3 Acoustic Filters
topic Signal Processing
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.11717