Abstract
Manufacturing an array of high-quality metallic pattern layers on a dielectric substrate remains a major challenge in the development of flexible and 3-D frequency selective surfaces (FSS). This paper proposes an improved fabrication solution for the 3-D FSS based on water transfer printing (WTP) technology. The main advantages of the proposed solution are its ability to transform complicated 2-D planar FSS patterns into 3-D structures while improving both manufacturing quality and production costs. WTP technology makes use of water surface tension to keep the thin metallic patterns of the proposed FSS floating flat with the absence of a solid planar substrate. This feature enables these metallic FSS patterns to be transferred onto 3-D structures through a dipping process. To test the effectiveness of the proposed technique, the FSS was designed using computer simulation software Microwave Studio to obtain the numerical performance of the FSS structure. The WTP technology was then used to fabricate the proposed FSS prototype before its performance was tested experimentally. The measurement results agreed well with the numerical results, indicating the proposed manufacturing solution would support the development of complicated 3-D electronics devices, such as conformal antenna arrays and metamaterials.
Highlights
A frequency selective surface (FSS) is a periodic array structure designed using either radiating or non-radiating elements[1]
Stretchable electronics may be bent or expanded in-plane. Such electronics can be fabricated using stretchable interconnects[16], liquid metal[17] and intrinsically stretchable materials[16,18,19]. Several electronics, such as implantable neuro monitors and stimulators[20], optoelectronic devices[21] and conformal photovoltaic devices[22], have been fabricated utilizing these technologies, but the fabrication of large-scale electronic devices, such as frequency selective surfaces (FSS), remains impractical due to the time consuming in the fabrication which results in high fabrication cost
A novel water transfer printing (WTP) technology was introduced for the fabrication of small-scale electronic devices[14,27,28,29,30]
Summary
A frequency selective surface (FSS) is a periodic array structure designed using either radiating or non-radiating elements[1]. To improve the marketability of these electronic components, more research works is needed to create a low-cost, high-quality technique for fabricating flexible, large-scale and 3-D electronics devices To this end, numerous investigations in the field of conformable electronics have focused on the fabrication solutions in realizing the flexible and stretchable electronic components[9,10,11,12,13,14]. Such electronics can be fabricated using stretchable interconnects (e.g. buckled or serpentine design)[16], liquid metal[17] and intrinsically stretchable materials[16,18,19] Several electronics, such as implantable neuro monitors and stimulators[20], optoelectronic devices[21] and conformal photovoltaic devices[22], have been fabricated utilizing these technologies, but the fabrication of large-scale electronic devices, such as FSSs, remains impractical due to the time consuming in the fabrication which results in high fabrication cost. The proposed WTP is expected to be an attractive solution for the manufacturing of large-scale 3-D electronic devices and a potential manufacturing candidate for the fabrication of the 5G massive MIMO (Multiple-Input Multiple-Output) antenna arrays
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