Inkjet printed patch antennas on transparent substrates

Abstract

There is a growing interest in optically transparent antennas. Turpin et al. has demonstrated a meshed patch antenna with 93% transparency where the antenna could be either fabricated from electroformed metal mesh or screen printed on transparent substrates with conductive inks [1]. For a faster and more accurate fabrication, it is favorable to print antenna with an inkjet printer as described by Rida [2]. While Rida's approach focused mainly on using paper substrates and on ring or dipole type antennas, this paper is aimed to present a cheaper printing method and the feasibility of printing patch type antennas on transparent substrates for the applications such as solar cell integration.