Higher-Order Overtone Thickness-Shear Vibrations of Multilayered Thin-Film Acoustic Wave Resonators and Angular Rate Sensing

We propose a new structure for piezoelectric gyroscopes. It is made from multilayered thin films of AlN or ZnO with alternating c-axes along the film thickness. It is shown theoretically that when such a film is electrically driven into higher-order overtone thickness-shear vibration in one of the two in-plane directions of the film and is rotating about the film normal, the Coriolis force due to the rotation causes a higher-order overtone thicknessshear vibration in a perpendicular direction with an electrical output that can be used to measure the angular rate of the rotation. Different from existing thickness-shear mode piezoelectric gyroscopes which are based on the fundamental or the second overtone thickness-shear mode, the proposed gyroscope operates with higher-order overtone thickness-shear modes with higher frequencies and hence potentially higher sensitivity. Because of the overtone modes, the Coriolis force acting on the gyroscope forms a self-equilibrated system and does not transmit a net force or torque to the mounting structure. This implies higher device quality factor and better performance.