Congratulations to IMG member Faysal Hakim from Tabrizian Group on his recent Nature Electronics publication titled “A ferroelectric-gate fin microwave acoustic spectral processor.”
In this article, Faysal and co-authors have demonstrated how extending the active area of nano-acoustic resonators to the third dimension enables extensive benefits for frequency scaling, massive arraying, and integration.
This follows a similar trend to field effect transistors transition to FinFETs and GAAFETs where 3D structure enable their continued integration and performance scaling.
An enabling feature for realization of the 3D nano-acoustic resonators and filters is ferroelectric hafnia-zirconia-alumina (Hf0.5Zr0.5O2-Al2O3) transducer that can be grown conformally on fin sides by atomic layer deposition and provides large and switchable piezoelectricity, even at few nanometers thickness. The 3D fin resonators created by a unique fabrication process developed entirely at the University of Florida operates over 3 - 28 GHz frequencies with a frequency-quality-coupling product of 19.4x1010 Hz around 11 GHz. The 3D filter array created in this approach covers 9 - 12 GHz spectrum using a single chip and provides dynamic configurability of the active passband.
Check out the article at: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41928-023-01109-5
