Lithium niobate tuning forks as piezoelectric transducers in photoacoustic spectroscopy

Aldo F. P. Cantatore; Angelo Sampaolo; Giansergio Menduni; Andrea Zifarelli; Miguel Gonzalez; Huseyin R. Seren; Pietro Patimisco; Vincenzo Spagnolo

doi:10.1117/12.3001687

8 March 2024 Lithium niobate tuning forks as piezoelectric transducers in photoacoustic spectroscopy

Aldo F. P. Cantatore, Angelo Sampaolo, Giansergio Menduni, Andrea Zifarelli, Miguel Gonzalez, Huseyin R. Seren, Pietro Patimisco, Vincenzo Spagnolo

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 12895, Quantum Sensing and Nano Electronics and Photonics XX; 1289508 (2024) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.3001687
Event: SPIE OPTO, 2024, San Francisco, California, United States

Abstract

In the last few decades, quartz has been the chosen material to fabricate piezoelectric resonators such as MEMS, racetrack resonators and tuning forks (TFs), which have been widely employed for a variety of sensing applications in several different fields, spanning from environmental monitoring to oil and gas industry. However, throughout the last decade, lithium niobate (LiN) started being employed in the integrated photonics field to build acousto-optical, electro-optical and nonlinear optical devices. In particular, 128° y-cut LiN has a higher density (4.64 g/cm³), Young modulus (145 GPa), and its piezoelectric coefficients are overall one order of magnitude greater compared to z-cut quartz. In this work, a custom lithium niobate tuning fork (LiNTF) is employed for the first time as a piezoelectric transducer in a photoacoustic spectroscopy-based apparatus devoted to gas sensing. The LiNTF was obtained from a 128° y-cut LN wafer and exhibits a resonance frequency f₀ = 39196.6 Hz and a quality factor Q = 5900 at atmospheric pressure. For this proof of concept, a water vapor absorption line falling at 7181.14 cm^-1 (1.392 μm) was targeted, achieving a signal to noise ratio (SNR) of 400 for a standard air sample having a 1.2% concentration of water vapor at atmospheric pressure and 100 ms of lock-in integration time. An Allan – Werle analysis showed a one order of magnitude improvement in the SNR when increasing the integration time up to 20 s. These preliminary results mark a first step towards the realization of LiNTF-based devices integrated on LiN platforms for gas sensing applications.

Conference Presentation

(2024) Published by SPIE. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.

Citation Download Citation

Aldo F. P. Cantatore, Angelo Sampaolo, Giansergio Menduni, Andrea Zifarelli, Miguel Gonzalez, Huseyin R. Seren, Pietro Patimisco, and Vincenzo Spagnolo "Lithium niobate tuning forks as piezoelectric transducers in photoacoustic spectroscopy", Proc. SPIE 12895, Quantum Sensing and Nano Electronics and Photonics XX, 1289508 (8 March 2024); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.3001687

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