Electrowetting-actuated liquid metal for RF applications

Abstract

Electrowetting is well-established as a fluid manipulation technique in such areas as lab-on-a-chip, visible light optics, and displays, yet has seen far less implementation in the field of radio-frequency (RF) electronics and electromagnetics. This is primarily due to a lack of appropriate materials selection and control in these devices. Low loss RF conductive fluids such as room temperature liquid metals (i.e. Hg, EGaIn, Galinstan) are by far the leading choice of active material due to their superior electrical properties but require high actuating voltages due to their inherently high surface tensions (>400 mN m−1) which often lead to dielectric breakdown. While the toxicity of Hg encourages the pursuit of non-toxic alternatives such as gallium alloys, the native surface oxide formation often prohibits reliable device functionality. Additionally, traditional electrowetting architectures rely on lossy electrode materials which degrade RF transmission efficiencies and result in non-reversible material diffusion at the electrode/liquid metal contact. In this work, we report on approaches to utilize liquid metals in electrowetting on dielectric (EWOD) devices that resolve all of these challenges by judicious choice of novel electrode materials, dielectric fluid, and device architecture. A functional RF device, namely an electromagnetic polarizer, is demonstrated that can be activated on demand through EWOD and provides an average signal attenuation of 12.91 dB in the on state and 1.46 dB in the off state over the range of 8–9.2 GHz, with a switching speed of about 12 ms. These results can be further extended to other RF applications such as tunable antennas, transmission lines, and switchable metasurfaces.