Acoustically actuated ultra-compact NEMS magnetoelectric antennas

Abstract

Antenna miniaturization is one of the fundamental challenges for decades. Conventional small antennas use electric currents for radiation which relies on electromagnetic wave resonance that leads to antenna sizes comparable to the electromagnetic wavelength. Here we demonstrated a new antenna mechanism: Acoustically actuated nanomechanical magnetoelectric (ME) antennas with released ferromagnetic/piezoelectric thin film resonators, which can generate magnetic currents for radiation and miniaturize the antenna size magnitude of 1 to 2 orders smaller with one of the highest gains within all nano-scale passive antennas. The ME antenna won the NASA Tech Briefs - Create the Future Design Contest: First Prize (in Electronics/Sensors/IoT Category) with over 800 entries from 60 countries in 2018, which is sponsored by Comsol, Intel, Analog Devices, Mouser Electronics and is featured in NASA Tech Briefs Magazine with more publicity and exposure to the industry and investors. The publication in Nature Communications was widely cited in different news media, including NATURE (Ultra-small antennas point way to miniature brain implants), SCIENCE (Mini-antennas could power brain-computer interfaces, medical devices), news on various websites and newspapers in different languages, TV interview. These nano-antennas with ultra-high sensitivity, high selectivity of the magnetic field, the integrated capability to CMOS technology, and ground plane immunity from the human body, have great potential applications for bio-implantable antennas, biomedical applications, internet of things, etc.