Combined FEM and Green´s function analysis of periodic SAW structure, application to the calculation of reflection and scattering parameters

Because of more and more stringent requirements on SAW filter performances, it is important to compute, with very good accuracy, the SAW propagation characteristics, which include the calculation of reflection and scattering parameters. For that reason, the analysis of periodic structures on a semi-infinite piezoelectric substrate is one of the most important problems being investigated by SAW researchers. For infinite periodic grating modeling, we developed numerical mixed FEM/BEM (finite element method-boundary element method) models using an efficient interpolation basis function that takes into account the singularity at both edges of each electrode. In this paper, a review of the numerical program that has been developed during the past few years will be presented. For an infinite periodic grating, it is convenient to solve the propagation problem in the Fourier domain (wave number space and harmonic excitation), and important efforts have been spent to properly integrate the so-called periodic harmonic Green function. Using this numerical model together with the general P-matrix formalism, it is possible to compute all of the basic parameters with a very good accuracy. These consist of the single strip reflectivity, acoustic wave-phase velocity, and position offset between reflection and transduction centers. Simulations and comparisons with experiments are shown for each model.