Aerosol jet printing for 3-D multilayer passive microwave circuitry

Abstract

Aerosol jet printed 3-D coplanar waveguides up to 50 GHz are demonstrated in this paper for the first time featuring a multilayer aerosol jet deposition process. The aerosol jet printing utilized in this paper is the first aerosol jet process to demonstrate multilayer deposition with bi-materials and is host substrate independent. The paper provides an insight into the fabrication process, the technology assessment and the characterization of the polyimide as well as the nano silver particles. The printed polyimide could achieve a thickness of 60 μm. The three-dimensional printed transmission lines demonstrated losses of 0.5 dB/mm at 50 GHz. Keywords— 3-D printing, aerosol jet printing, conducting ink, coplanar waveguide, multilayers, RF, silver nano-particle.