Fabrication of RFID antennas on non-woven slag fiber paper

Abstract

RFID antennas were successfully fabricated on non-woven slag fiber paper (NWSFP) using an inkjet printing metallization technique with our unique ink containing nano palladium (Pd) catalysts. The antenna pattern was first printed on NWSFP with the ink containing nano-catalysts and then metalized by electrolessly plating a metal film, such as nickel (Ni), nickel gold (Ni–Au), or copper (Cu), to form the RFID antenna. The compactness of the NWSFP microstructure was optimized by adjusting the hot-pressing temperature and pressure in order to improve the controllability of the metal linewidth of the antenna pattern. A four-point-probe test was used to measure the sheet resistance of the metal film and the results indicated that the metal films coated on hot-pressed NWSFP clearly had lower sheet resistance than those coated on un-pressed NWSFP. The tested read range of our RFID antenna was as far as 2m. Our results showed that the ink jet printing method combined with our nano-Pd ink and electroless plating can offer a fast and low-cost way to fabricate RFID antenna on NWSFP.