In this paper, we discuss the generation mechanisms of third-order nonlinearity in surface acoustic wave (SAW) devices on the basis of simulation results, which are obtained by a proposed method for this discussion. First, eight nonlinear terms are introduced to the piezoelectric constitutive equations, and nonlinear stress and electric flux fields are estimated using linear strain and electric fields calculated by a linear analysis, i.e., the coupling of mode simulation. Then, their contributions are embedded as voltage and current sources, respectively, in an equivalent circuit model, and nonlinear signals appearing at external ports are estimated. It is shown that eight coefficients of the nonlinear terms can be determined from a series of experiments carried out at various driving and resulting frequencies. This is because the effect of each nonlinear term on the nonlinear signal outputs changes markedly with the conditions. When the coefficients are determined properly, the simulations agree well with some measurement results under various conditions.

No abstract