PFI-RP: Novel Alloy Materials and Device Designs for 5G Wireless Communications

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Partnerships for Innovation – Research Partnerships (PFI-RP) project extends the operational frequency range of wireless communication devices to the next stage of 5G operation by developing new materials. Higher operating frequencies mean higher data rates, but the compact, efficient, and low-cost acoustic components that dominate the wireless handset market today are limited by the fundamental properties of the materials at their core. The current alternatives to the existing materials are bulky, inefficient and lead to rapid battery drain with unacceptable heating during data transmission. Extending these acoustic components into the 6 – 10 GHz region requires a high throughput screening combined with co-design approach to rapidly and efficiently develop new materials with enabling properties that can be rapidly leveraged by novel device designs and chips manufacturing. This project builds from fundamental materials concepts of non-linear alloy behavior to extend these components into emerging 5G communication bands. The proposed project will address the open scientific question of how to accurately compute the speed of sound of complex alloys from first principles, including multi-scale chemical ordering, using tools that we have recently developed. Guided by such tools, we will leverage high throughput experimental screening capabilities to fabricate new piezoelectric alloys with higher acoustic velocities than existing options. This process will increase our understanding of the energetic non-equilibrium fabrication via reactive sputtering and electromechanical properties of complex multi-cation and simultaneously multi-anion alloys. Development and property optimization of these newly conceived piezoelectrics having increased acoustic velocity and reduced permittivity will be coupled to novel device structures to demonstrate acoustic resonators at >6 GHz operating frequencies. Co-design of the new materials that exhibit enabling properties and the resonators that can leverage said properties will lead to compact, low-cost, high efficiency filters for wireless handsets for >6 GHz operation. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.