Trw Limited

Reynold S Kagiwada

Kuo-Hsiung Yen

Kei-Fung Lau

Robert Bruce Stokes

Michael J Delaney

Alvin M Kong

Marshall Y Huang

Donald L Lochhead

Kei F Lau

David B Hall

Ke-Li Wang

James A Leaverton

Kuo-Hsuing Yen

A surface acoustic wave (SAW) device for converting multiple parallel signals to a smaller number of serial signals. The device includes a piezoelectric substrate and a surface acoustic wave (SAW) input transducer for propagating periodic surface acoustic waves across the substrate. The parallel signals are input to the device through an array of acoustic charge transport (ACT) input transducers, which convert the signals into packets of electrical charge that are transported across the device with the surface acoustic waves generated at the SAW input transducer. An ACT output transducer converts the charge packets back into electrical signals, but in serial rather than parallel form. The converter of the invention can be usefully combined with a SAW channelizer or spectrum analyzer, to provide serial outputs from the analyzer.

Parallel-to-serial signal processor using surface acoustic waves

A surface acoustic wave (SAW) diffraction-effect or interference-effect device with a highly isotropic substrate having a high coupling coefficient and low attenuation losses. The use of X-propagating rotated-Y-cut lithium niobate as the SAW substrate, with the Y rotation angle selected at 121 degrees, provides a practically isotropic material, with a high coupling coefficient and relatively low attenuation losses.

Isotropic acoustic wave substrate

An acoustic wave filter device with low loss and low passband ripple characteristics. The filter comprises three bidirectional electroacoustical transducers disposed along a common axis on the surface of a substrate of piezoelectric material. The two outer transducers of the three function as input transducers and the center transducer functions as an output transducer. One of the input transducers is of the antisymmetric type and has a transfer characteristic that differs in phase angle by ninety degrees with respect to the other input transducer, which is of the symmetric type. This ninety-degree difference applies at all frequencies, so that any energy reflected from the output transducer and again reflected by an input transducer will be subject to a phase shift of 180 degrees in the case of energy reflected from the antisymmetric input transducer, and no phase shift in the case of the symmetric input transducer. Accordingly, these triple-transit echoes will cancel at the output transducer, for all frequencies. For the primary energy propagation from the input transducers to the output transducer, a ninety-degree phase shifter in one input circuit ensures that the signals from the two input transducers are in phase when they reach the output transducer.

Low-loss acoustic wave filter device

A surface acoustic wave (SAW) device configured to operate as a spectrum analyzer, and having an array of input transducers disposed on a substrate in such positions as to produce a focused beam of acoustic energy at a focal arc, each position on the arc being representative of an input signal frequency. Output transducers produce electrical signals corresponding to the energy received at successive segments of the focal arc. The disclosed device includes various combinations of input transducer array improvements, some of which are to provide amplitude weighting of the input array, including aperture width weighting, capacitive weighting, resistive weighting, series-parallel weighting, and source withdrawal weighting. Another improvement in input array configuration eliminates close or overlapping electrodes of opposite polarities and thereby reduces parasitic capacitance and acoustic radiation between electrode elements. The use of curved input transducer fingers improves operation of the transducers as point sources. Other important improvements include the use of acoustic transducers before to transmit the focused output energy from the focal line to conventional output transducers, thereby improving frequency resolution, and the use of electromagnetic waveguides to transmit energy from output transducers located on the focal line.

Surface acoustic wave spectrum analyzer

Acoustic wave devices employing shallow bulk acoustic waves rather than surface acoustic waves, to provide higher frequencies of operation and other significant advantages, such as less susceptibility to aging and less sensitivity to surface contamination. In each embodiment of the invention, a transmitting transducer and a receiving transducer are oriented on the surface of an anisotropic piezoelectric crystal to achieve substantial coupling of shallow bulk acoustic waves and essentially zero coupling of surface acoustic waves. In one embodiment of the invention, various types of grating filters utilize shallow bulk acoustic waves, and a set of parallel mechanical or electrical discontinuities at or near the surface of the crystal provide reflection of acoustic energy at a frequency determined by the spacing of the discontinuities. Uniformly spaced gratings provide bandpass filter operation, and gratings with graduated spacings provide for frequency compression or expansion. In another embodiment of the invention, variations in device characteristics due to temperature changes are compensated for by directing the shallow bulk waves through materials having favorable or opposite temperature characteristics compared with those of the material into which the waves are originally launched. In other embodiments of the invention, a shallow bulk acoustic wave includes a multistrip coupler, for transferring electroacoustic energy from one propagation path to another, for use in bandpass filters, delay lines or unidirectional transducers.

Shallow bulk acoustic wave devices

Energy trapping elements for use with shallow bulk acoustic wave devices of various kinds, to minimize the insertion loses in such devices due to spreading of electroacoustic energy into the crystal substrate upon which the devices are constructed. Electroacoustic energy propagated in a substrate is trapped close to the surface of the substrate by means of trapping elements comprising a plurality of strips or grooves disposed on the surface of the substrate in the path of the propagated energy, and oriented approximately perpendicularly to the direction of propagation. The spacing of the elements is such that their stop-band frequency, at which energy will be reflected, is substantially different from the characteristic center frequency of the entire device, in order that the elements will serve a purely trapping function and not a reflecting function.

Shallow bulk acoustic wave devices employing energy trapping

A surface acoustic resonator including an interdigital transducer configured to generate acoustic waves at at least one harmonic frequency, and a pair of reflection gratings capable of essentially total reflection of the acoustic waves in both fundamental and harmonic modes of operation. One-port and two-port resonators are disclosed, capable of operation at fundamental and harmonic frequencies, to provide a higher frequency of operation without correspondingly higher resolution requirements for manufacturing processes. For single-mode operation at higher frequencies, the interdigital transducer and reflection gratings have different fundamental frequencies, and utilize harmonics of different order but the same actual frequency, such that the resonator functions at a single frequency, which may be, for example, the third harmonic with respect to the transducer fundamental frequency, and the second harmonic with respect to the reflection grating-fundamental frequency.

Surface acoustic wave resonators utilizing harmonic frequencies

An acousto-optic device suitable as a correlator, convolution integrator or Fourier transform device. The device comprises a piezoelectric substrate or crystal such as lithium niobate. The substrate is covered by a thin, outer layer having higher index of refraction than the substrate and a thickness on the order of 50 micrometers. Two acoustic transducers such as interdigital transducers are disposed on opposite ends of the crystal to launch two acoustic surface waves in opposite directions. A laser beam is guided through the outer layer and is coupled with the two acoustic waves to generate either a correlation function, a Fourier transform or a convolution integral depending on the signals impressed thereon.

Growing community of inventors

Los Angeles, CA, United States of America

Reynold S Kagiwada