Research Interests: RF MEMS Job Interests: Industry R&DBIOGRAPHY Robert received his BSEE from the University of Washington in 2009. He has previously held industrial positions with Kimberly-Clark working at a tissue factory in Everett, WA and at a Huggies diapers plant in Ogden, UT. Strong I/O Coupled High-Q Micromechanical Filters [BPN682] This project improves the Q-factors of piezoelectric aluminum nitride (AlN) resonators by detaching their
electrodes and suspending them at close distance. These devices are then used to make high-Q filters.
"Capacitive-piezo" transduction, as it is called, allows for simultaneous low motional impedance (10-1000
Ohm) and high-Q (Q>8,800) performance for AlN resonators at VHF and UHF frequencies. The main advantage of
these devices over capacitive resonators is their much stronger electromechanical coupling, e.g.,
Cx/C0>1.0%, enabling kt^2*Q figures of merit exceeding those of other technology classes in the range of
100MHz-1GHz. This project aims to use these high-performance resonators to demonstrate self-switchable, low
impedance channel-selecting filters. Such filters can operate with insertion losses of less than 2-dB, stop-
band rejection exceeding 50-dB, and power handling capability for high out-of-band and in-band power. |