Tutorial-2: Inkjet printed RF electronics

Abstract

This workshop introduces inkjet printing as an emerging new technique to realize low cost, flexible and wearable systems in the field of RF electronics. Inkjet printing is being used for many years for printing graphics, texts and images but only recently it has one more growing area of application which is printing electronic systems on variety of different substrates. The sudden rise of interest in inkjet printed electronics is due to the recent development of conductive inks which can achieve conductivities close to that of copper. In this short course, inkjet printing process and its applications in RF electronics are discussed along with the issues and challenges compared to conventional photolithographic techniques. The materials that can be used to produce inks along with the ink properties required for the inkjet process are also discussed. Inkjet printing allows use of several different kinds of flexible, low cost and transparent substrates which are described in this course. An overview of state of the art inkjet printed devices and systems is presented. Applications of inkjet printing with design examples including antennas, passives and transistors are shown.