The growth of high-quality AlN films has been studied by reactive sputtering onto Mo electrodes with Ni, Ti, and TiW seed layers and subsequent integration into thin film bulk acoustic wave resonators. The crystalline structure and morphology of the Mo and c-axis oriented AlN films were found to vary strongly with seed layer material and thickness. The smoothest Mo electrodes were obtained on thin Ti films. Reactive sputtering of AlN on top of these optimized electrodes resulted in a dense columnar grain structure with a well-aligned (002) crystal orientation and good electro-acoustic properties, including an effective coupling coefficient of 6.89% and quality factor above 1000. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.