Analysis of viscous losses in the chemical interface layer of Love wave sensors

Love waves have been introduced as highly effective devices for liquid-sensing applications. For chemical sensors, a microacoustic delay line featuring a multilayered waveguide supporting a generalised Love wave mode can be used in an oscillator setup. The top layer of the waveguide is a chemical interface, which selectively adsorbs certain target molecules in the adjacent liquid. The increase in mass density caused by adsorption can be detected as changes in the oscillation frequency. Commonly used interface materials show viscoelastic losses leading to an unwanted damping of the wave. To keep the signal-to-noise ratio high, the total insertion loss of the delay line should be kept as low as possible. Furthermore, it must not exceed a certain value to allow the electronic circuitry to sustain the oscillation. We analyzed the viscoelastic losses, which strongly depend on the frequency being used. By means of the proposed theoretical approach, the maximum thickness of the interface layer can be determined not to exceed the losses that can be handled by the driving electronics.