Monolithically-Integrated Inkjet-Printed Magneto-Electric Dipole Antennas and Arrays

This article reports on a new class of fully monolithically-integrated 3D antennas and antenna arrays based on single-polarized and dual-polarized magneto-electric (ME) dipole elements. A new multi-material piezo drop-on-demand inkjet printing integration scheme is used to facilitate monolithic 3D integration, size compactness and performance enhancement. For proof-of-concept validation purposes, prototypes of single-and dual-polarized antenna elements and arrays were designed, manufactured, and tested at Ku-band. They include: i) a single-polarized magneto-electric (SPME) dipole antenna with center frequency ( f cen ) of 13 GHz, gain of 6.3 dB and bandwidth (BW) of 4.2 GHz, ii) a dual-polarized ME (DPME) dipole antenna with f cen of 15 GHz, gain of 5.8 dB and overlapped BW of 3.5 GHz, iii) a 1×4 SPME-based antenna array with f cen of 13 GHz, gain of 7.5 dB and BW of 4.61 GHz, and iv) a 2×2 DPME-based antenna array with f cen of 15 GHz, gain of 8.36 dB and overlapped BW of 3.85 GHz.