Investigation of material properties for polymer-based microwave devices

Abstract

This work demonstrates that the molding technique for polymer-based flexible microwave electronics with various polymers in order to evaluate acceptable boundaries for conductivity and tan loss. Performance evaluation has been done on the microstrip line and patch antennas with and without material improvements. We have demonstrated that improvements in conductivity after 106 S/m do not give significant benefits. The attenuation in microstrip lines has been reduced from 0.16dB/cm to 0.05dB/cm. However, reduction in the tan loss is able to boost antenna gain from 4.2dBi to 6.5dBi.