Abstract
In this work we present a method for fabricating three dimensional, ultralight and flexible millimeter metamaterial units using a commercial household 3D printer. The method is low-cost, fast, eco-friendly and accessible. In particular, we use the Fused Deposition Modeling 3D printing technique and we fabricate flexible conductive Spilt Ring Resonators (SRRs) in a free-standing form. We characterized the samples experimentally through measurements of their spectral transmission, using standard rectangular microwave waveguides. Our findings show that the resonators produce well defined resonant electromagnetic features that depend on the structural details and the infiltrating dielectric materials, indicating that the thin, flexible and light 3D printed structures may be used as electromagnetic microwave components and electromagnetic fabrics for coating a variety of devices and infrastructure units, while adapting to different shapes and sizes.
Highlights
Metamaterials and their two dimensional analogues, metasurfaces, are artificial materials with purposefully designed subwavelength, periodic elementary units, the meta-atoms, which provide controllable interactions with electromagnetic (EM) waves and enable exotic electromagnetic functions [1,2]
For the polylactic acid (PLA)/Ag samples we assumed a uniform material of conductivity σ = 105 S/m and for the Electrifi σ = 1.6 × 104 S/m, allowing in both cases a deviation of 0.5% about the nominal value
To simulate the rectangular waveguide we assumed surrounding metallic walls, while the fundamental mode was excited in the input port
Summary
Metamaterials and their two dimensional analogues, metasurfaces, are artificial materials with purposefully designed subwavelength, periodic elementary units, the meta-atoms, which provide controllable interactions with electromagnetic (EM) waves and enable exotic electromagnetic functions [1,2]. Metamaterials and complex media have been extensively experimentally evaluated and tested for real life applications and devices, such as antennas, sensors, splitters, isolators, modulators, electromagnetic shieldings and energy harvesters, in a large frequency range [3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14] Their properties depend on both the meta-atoms’ architecture, and the constituent materials, which can be dielectrics, metals, semiconductors or 2D materials [15,16,17,18]. The production of FR-4 is a complex procedure including several steps—drilling, cutting, Materials 2020, 13, 3879; doi:10.3390/ma13173879 www.mdpi.com/journal/materials
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