Pushing Inkjet Printing to W-Band: An all-printed 90-GHz beamforming array
Pushing Inkjet Printing to W-Band: An all-printed 90-GHz beamforming array
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将喷墨打印推向 W 频段：全打印 90 GHz 波束成形阵列
DOI：
10.1109/mwsym.2018.8439463
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发表时间：
2018
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
M. Tentzeris
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
J. Kimionis;S. Shahramian;Y. Baeyens;Amit Singh;M. Tentzeris
在这项工作中，喷墨打印工艺得到了改进，将增材制造的能力提升到了W波段（75-110 GHz）。充分考虑了聚合物介电材料上喷墨印刷的特性，以减轻导致RF电路失谐和性能恶化的过度油墨扩散的影响。开发的工艺使第一个喷墨打印90 GHz阵列的柔性基板上，具有5个元素和11.3 dBi增益制造。在不使用任何专业表面处理设备的情况下实现了高制造精度，有效地将毫米波系统制造的基线设备减少到单个喷墨打印机和对流烘箱。概念验证阵列的形状因子将允许与波束形成网络集成;例如，设计了小型化的4 × 4 Butler矩阵，实现了制造空间限制，为第一个在W波段工作的全印刷波束形成阵列开辟了道路，显著节省了制造成本。
In this work, the inkjet printing process is refined to push the capabilities of additive manufacturing up to the W-band (75–110 GHz). The idiosyncrasies of inkjet printing on polymer dielectric materials are fully taken into account, to mitigate the effect of excessive ink spreading which results in RF circuit detuning and performance deterioration. The developed process enables the fabrication of the very first inkjet-printed 90 GHz array on a flexible substrate, featuring 5 elements and a 11.3 dBi gain. High fabrication accuracy has been achieved without using any specialized surface treatment equipment, effectively reducing the baseline equipment for mmWave system fabrication to a single inkjet printer and a convection oven. The proof-of-concept array's form factor will allow integration with beam-forming networks; as an example, a miniaturized 4 × 4 Butler matrix is designed with the achieved fabrication space constraints which opens the way for the first fully-printed beamforming arrays operating in W-band with significant fabrication cost savings.