Joint time-frequency analysis of micro-acoustic devices

In this paper, a novel analysis technique for the performance evaluation of micro-acoustic devices has been proposed. Whereas traditional techniques typically focus solely on the frequency domain characteristics, we employ a Joint Time-Frequency Analysis (JTFA), which has been shown to provide a more complete characterisation of overall device performance and underlying physical phenomena. Although an emphasis is placed on a Flexural Plate Wave (FPW) device, the analysis technique presented is applicable to a wider range of micro-acoustic devices including Surface Acoustic Wave (SAW) structures and Thin-Film Bulk Acoustic Wave Resonators (TFBARs). SAWdevices, and indeed general filters, are typically described by a frequency domain characteristic, whereby the entire time domain information is discarded. This type of analysis assumes that the device has reached quasistationary conditions. By employing JTFA, the device performance can simultaneously be studied as a function of both time and frequency. This type of analysis is typically useful where spurious acoustic modes are generated which may influence the overall filter characteristic. We have investigated the functional properties of various JTFA kernels, including those appearing in the Wigner-Ville, Choi-Williams and Page distributions.