An Intriguing Feature of Linear Motors Driven by Surface Acoustic Waves

Motors driven by surface acoustic waves (SAWs) have been extensively investigated due to their potential applications in various environments. One of the problems we are confronted with is the lifetime of the substrate which supports SAWs since it becomes fragile when large-amplitude SAWs are excited on the substrate. In order to prolong the lifetime of the substrate, we propose to apply modulated driving voltage with a duty ratio to the interdigital transducers. With the implementation of such a proposal, we found an intriguing phenomenon which is out of expectation, i.e., when the driving voltage is high, the slider speed under modulated driving with a suitable duty ratio might be larger than that with the continuous driving.