Generation and propagation of super-high-frequency bulk acoustic wave in GaAs

Abstract

Coherent super-high-frequency (SHF) vibrations provide an excellent tool for the modulation and control of excitations in semiconductors. Here, we investigate the piezoelectric generation and propagation of longitudinal bulk acoustic waves (LBAWs) with frequencies up to 20 GHz in GaAs crystals using bulk acoustic wave resonators (BAWRs) based on piezoelectric thin ZnO films. We show that the electro-acoustic conversion efficiency of the BAWRs depends sensitively on the sputtering conditions of the ZnO films. The BAWRs were then used for the study of the propagation properties of the LBAWs in GaAs in the frequency and temperature ranges from 1 to 20 GHz and 10 and 300 K, respectively, which have so far not been experimentally accessed. We found that the intrinsic acoustic absorption of GaAs in the temperature range from 80 K to 300 K is dominated by scattering with thermal phonons. At lower temperatures, in contrast, the intrinsic acoustic absorption saturates at a frequency-dependent value. Experiments carried out with different propagation lengths indicate that the saturation is associated with losses during reflection at the sample boundaries. We also demonstrate devices with high quality factor fabricated on top of acoustic Bragg-reflectors. The results presented here prove the feasibility of high-quality acoustic resonators embedding GaAs-based nanostructures, thus opening the way for the modulation and control of their properties by electrically excited SHF LBAWs.

arXiv commentResearch article

References in corpus (14)

• Cavity Optomechanics
• Quantum control of surface acoustic wave phonons
• Acoustically driven ferromagnetic resonance
• Optomechanical Quantum Control of a Nitrogen Vacancy Center in Diamond
• Confinement of acoustical vibrations in a semiconductor planar phonon cavity
• Resolved Sideband Emission of InAs/GaAs Quantum Dots Strained by Surface Acoustic Waves
• Surface acoustic wave resonators in the quantum regime
• Local probing of propagating acoustic waves in a gigahertz echo chamber
• Surface Acoustic Wave induced Transport in a Double Quantum Dot
• Interaction of surface acoustic waves with electronic excitations in graphene
• Lifetime of sub-THz coherent acoustic phonons in a GaAs-AlAs superlattice
• Microscopic nanomechanical dissipation in gallium arsenide resonators
• Direct measurement of coherent subterahertz acoustic phonons mean free path in GaAs
• Breakdown of Herring's processes in cubic semiconductors for sub-terahertz longitudinal acoustic phonons

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Perspectives on high-frequency nanomechanics, nanoacoustics, and nanophononics
• Electrically driven exciton-polariton optomechanics at super high frequencies
• Extreme acoustic anisotropy in crystals visualized by diffraction tensor
• Impedance-matched High-overtone Bulk Acoustic Resonator
• Protected Long-Distance Guiding of Hypersound Underneath a Nano-Corrugated Surface
• Topical review on acousto-optical Floquet engineering of single-photon emitters