Temperature-compensated Love-wave sensors on quartz substrates

Love wave-based microacoustic sensors are suitable for sensing applications in the liquid phase, where conventional Rayleigh surface acoustic wave sensors cannot be used. Typically, they yield even higher sensitivities than comparable Rayleigh SAW devices offer in gas sensing. Up to now, Love-wave devices have been realized using commercially available standard crystal orientations. The latter are optimized to provide intrinsic temperature compensation for conventional SAW or bulk wave devices; however, they yield no temperature compensation for Love modes. To overcome this, new crystal orientations have been considered. In this contribution, we present an alternative crystal cut based on theoretical considerations and its experimental verification.