Surface acoustic wave reflection/transmission at vertical borders of piezoelectric substrates

The paper studies by the finite element method the harmonic surface acoustic wave scattering at 90° corners of piezoelectric substrates. The SAW is incident perpendicular to the vertical border. The dependencies of the reflection and transmission coefficient on the radius of the fillet at the corner are found for 128°YX and YZ LiNbO3 as well as ST-X SiO2 substrates. In particular, the obtained results reveal that, like in the case of isotropic solids, the magnitude of the reflection coefficient first increases with the fillet radius to wavelength ratio r/λ, reaches a maximum at r/λ≈0.3-0.5, and then decreases tending to zero. The magnitude of the transmission coefficient across the rounded corner first decreases, reaches a minimum at r/λ≈0.3-0.5, and then increases up to a value around which it slightly oscillates as r/λ increases. It is demonstrated that if the substrate is anisotropic, then in the general case a SAW is scattered off differently at the right-hand border and the left-hand border. The difference between the “right-hand” and “left-hand” transformation coefficients can be very substantial. Computations for YZ LiNbO3 illustrate possible levels of the anisotropy of the scattering for mutually reverse directions of incidence. It is shown that if the substrate is specially oriented, then the scattering from the right-hand border is identical to the scattering from the left-hand border. There are four types of such orientations. Examples of the specially oriented substrates are 128°YX LiNbO3 and ST-X SiO2.