volume | PIER Journals

Abstract

Coplanar monopole antennas printed using copper oxide nanoparticles on flexible substrates are characterized in order to study the effect of the ink drop spacing on the antenna parameters. Polyethylene Terephthalate and Epson paper were the chosen flexible substrates, and the antennas were designed to operate at 20 GHz. A maximum conductivity of 2.8×10⁷ Ω⁻¹m⁻¹ was obtained for the films printed on Polyethylene Terephthalate using a drop spacing of 20 μm. The corresponding antenna achieved a gain and an efficiency of 1.82 dB and 97.6%, respectively. Experiments showed that smaller drop spacings lead to bulging of the printed lines while the antenna performance worsens for longer ones. At the same drop spacing, antennas printed on Epson paper substrate showed a -10 dB return loss bandwidth which extended from 17.9 GHz to 23.3 GHz, leading to a fractional bandwidth of 26.0%.

1. Ciftci, T., B. Karaosmanoglu, and O. Ergul, "Low-cost inkjet antennas for RFID applications," 2015 Radio and Antenna Days of the Indian Ocean (RADIO), Belle Mare, 1-2, Belle Mare, Mauritius, 2015.

2. Kang, H., H. Park, Y. Park, M. Jung, B. C. Kim, G. Wallace, and G. Choa, "Fully roll-toroll gravure printable wireless (13.56 MHz) sensors-signage tags for smart packaging," Scientific Reports, Vol. 4, No. 5387, 2014.

3. Wegener, M., D. Spiehl, H. M. Sauer, F. Mikschl, X. Liu, N. Kolpin, M. Schmidt, M. P. M. Jank, E. Dorsam, and A. Roosen, "Flexographic printing of nanoparticulate tin-doped indium oxide inks on PET foils and glass substrates," Journal of Materials Science, Vol. 51, No. 9, 4588-4600, 2016.
doi:10.1007/s10853-016-9772-3

4. Willmann, J., D. Stocker, and E. Dorsam, "Characteristics and evaluation criteria of substratebased manufacturing. Is roll-to-roll the best solution for printed electronics?," Organic Electronics, Vol. 17, No. 7, 1631-1640, 2014.
doi:10.1016/j.orgel.2014.04.022

5. Yousef, S. and A. Mohamed, "Mass production of CNTs using CVD multi-quartz tubes," Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology, Vol. 30, No. 11, 5135-5141, 2016.
doi:10.1007/s12206-016-1031-7

6. Komoda, N., M. Nogi, K. Suganuma, K. Kohno, Y. Akiyama, and K. Otsuka, "Printed silver nanowire antennas with low signal loss at high-frequency radio," Nanoscale, Vol. 4, 3148-3153, 2012.
doi:10.1039/c2nr30485f

7. Lu, J. D., P. J. Deng, L. H. Li, and W. W. Li, "The research on gravure printing RFID antenna," Advanced Materials Research, Vol. 1033–1034, 1142-1148, 2014.
doi:10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMR.1033-1034.1142

8. Bornemann, N., H. M. Sauer, and E. Dorsam, "Gravure printed ultrathin layers of small-molecule semiconductors on glass," Journal of Imaging Science and Technology, Vol. 55, No. 4, 2011.
doi:10.2352/J.ImagingSci.Technol.2011.55.4.040201

9. Spurek, J., J. Velim, M. Cupal, Z. Raida, J. Prasek, and J. Hubalek, "Slot loop antennas printed on 3D textile substrate," 21st International Conference on Microwave, Radar and Wireless Communications (MIKON), Gdansk, Poland, May 9–11, 2016.

10. Dokic, M., V. Radonic, A. Pletersek, U. Kavcic, V. Crnojevic-Bengin, and T. Muck, "Comparison between the characteristics of screen and flexographic printing for RFID applications," Journal of Microelectronics, Electronic Components and Materials, Vol. 45, No. 1, 3-11, 2015.

11. Kim, S., M. M. Tentzeris, and S. Nikolaou, "Wearable biomonitoring monopole antennas using inkjet printed electromagnetic band gap structures," 6th European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EUCAP), Prague, Czech Republic, Mar. 26–Mar. 30, 2012.

12. Hassan, A., S. Ali, J. Bae, and C. H. Lee, "All printed antenna based on silver nanoparticles for 1.8 GHz applications," Applied Physics A, Vol. 122, 768, 2016.
doi:10.1007/s00339-016-0286-2

13. Khonsari, Z., T. Bjorninen, M. M. Tentzeris, L. Sydanheimo, and L. Ukkonen, "2.4 GHz inkjetprinted RF energy harvester on bulk cardboard substrate," IEEE Radio and Wireless Symposium (RWS), San Diego, CA, USA, Jan. 25–Jan. 28, 2015.

14. Roushdy, M. M. and H. F. Hammad, "Inkjet printed wearable Hilbert monopole fractal antenna optimized for BAN systems," 33rd National Radio Science Conference (NRSC), Aswan, Egypt, 2016.

15. http://www.fujifilmusa.com/press/news/display news?newsID=880813,.

16. Soltman, D. and V. Subramanian, "Inkjet-printed line morphologies and temperature control of the coffee ring effect," Langmuir, Vol. 24, No. 5, 2224-2231, 2008.
doi:10.1021/la7026847

17. Poozesh, S., K. Saito, N. K. Akafuah, and J. Grana-Otero, "Comprehensive examination of a new mechanism to produce small droplets in drop-on-demand inkjet technology," Applied Physics A, Vol. 122, No. 110, 2016.

18. Albrecht, A., A. Rivadeneyra, A. Abdellah, P. Luglia, and J. F. Salmerona, "Inkjet printing and photonic sintering of silver and copper oxide nanoparticles for ultra-low-cost conductive patterns," Journal of Materials Chemistry C, Vol. 4, 3546-3554, 2016.
doi:10.1039/C6TC00628K

19. Sipila, E., J. Virkki, J. Wang, L. Sydanheimo, and L. Ukkonen, "Brush-painting and photonic sintering of copper oxide and silver inks on wood and cardboard substrates to form antennas for UHF RFID tags," International Journal of Antennas and Propagation, Vol. 2016, 2016.

20. Ten Brink, G. H., N. Foley, D. Zwaan, B. J. Kooia, and G. Palasantzas, "Roughness controlled superhydrophobicity on single nanometer length scale with metal nanoparticles," RSC Advances, Vol. 5, 28696-28702, 2015.
doi:10.1039/C5RA02348C

21. Van Der Pauw, L. J., "A method of measuring specific resistivity and hall effect of discs of arbitrary shape," Philips Research Reports, Vol. 13, 1-9, Feb. 1958.

22. Kang, J. S., H. S. Kim, J. Ryu, H. T. Hahn, S. Jang, and J. W. Joung, "Inkjet printed electronics using copper nanoparticle ink," Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Electronics, Vol. 21, No. 11, 1213-1220, 2010.
doi:10.1007/s10854-009-0049-3

23. Zenou, M., O. Ermak, A. Saar, and Z. Kotler, "Laser sintering of copper nanoparticles," Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics, Vol. 47, No. 2, 2013.

24. Chen, C. N., C. P. Chen, T.-Y. Dong, T. C. Chang, M. C. Chen, H. T. Chen, and I. G. Chen, "Using nanoparticles as direct-injection printing ink to fabricate conductive silver features on a transparent flexible PET substrate at room temperature," Acta Materialia, Vol. 60, No. 16, 5914-5924, 2012.
doi:10.1016/j.actamat.2012.07.034

25. Ahmed, S., F. A. Tahir, A. Shamim, and H. M. Cheema, "A compact Kapton-based inkjet-printed multiband antenna for flexible wireless devices," IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters, Vol. 14, 1802-1805, 2015.
doi:10.1109/LAWP.2015.2424681

26. Wei, Y., Y. Li, R. Torah, and J. Tudor, "Laser curing of screen and inkjet printed conductors on flexible substrates," Symposium on Design, Test, Integration and Packaging of MEMS/MOEMS (DTIP), Montpellier, France, Apr. 27–30, 2015.

27. Elsheakh, D. M. and M. F. Iskander, "Circularly polarized triband printed Quasi-Yagi antenna for millimeter-wave applications," International Journal of Antennas and Propagation, Vol. 2015, 2015.

28. Mehdipour, A., I. D. Rosca, A.-R. Sebak, C. W. Trueman, and S. V. Hoa, "Carbon nanotube composite for wideband millimeter-wave antenna applications," IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, Vol. 59, No. 10, 3572-3578, 2011.
doi:10.1109/TAP.2011.2163755

Dr. Shaimaa Mohassieb

Dr. Khaled Kirah

Dr. Edgar Dorsam

Dr. Ahmed Saad G. Khalil

Professor Hadia El-Hennawy