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Thickness-shear Frequencies of an Infinite Quartz Plate with Material Property Variation Along the Thickness

Properties of the quartz crystal blank of a resonator is assumed homogeneous, uniform, and perfect in design, manufacturing, and applications. As end products, quartz crystal resonators are frequently exposed to gases and liquids which can cause surface damage and internal degradation of blanks under increasingly hostile conditions. The combination of service conditions and manufacturing process including chemical etching and polishing can inevitably modify the surface of quartz crystal blanks with changes of material properties, raising the question of what will happen to vibrations of quartz crystal resonators of thickness-shear type if such modifications to blanks are to be evaluated for sensitive applications. Such questions have been encountered in other materials and structures with property variations either on purpose or as the effect of environmental or natural processes commonly referred to as functionally graded materials, or FGMs. Analyses have been done in applications as part of studies on FGMs in structural as well as in acoustic wave device applications. A procedure based on series solutions has been developed in the evaluation of frequency changes and features in an infinite quartz crystal plate of AT-cut with the symmetric material variation pattern given in a cosine function with the findings that the vibration modes are now closely coupled. These results can be used in the evaluation of surface damage and corrosion of quartz crystal blanks of resonators in sensor applications or development of new structures of resonators.