A 2 GHz Polypyrrole microstrip patch antenna on Plexiglas™ substrate

A microstrip patch antenna (MPA) has been fabricated using a conducting polymer (CP), polypyrrole (PPy) as radiating patch on a transparent 3 mm thick Plexiglas
^TM
substrate. The bulk DC conductivity of the PPy patch is 2000 S/m and its thickness 120 μm. The MPA was designed for operating at 2 GHz. A similar antenna with copper (Cu) patch on Plexiglas
^TM
was also fabricated for validating the simulation of PPy antenna and comparing its performance. The results show that the PPy antenna reaches a gain of 5.01 dB at 2.18 GHz as against 6.26 dB at 2.2 GHz for a corresponding Cu patch antenna. The conduction efficiency of Cu-patch antenna is around 80% while that of PPy-patch antenna is around 60%. The results suggest that it might be possible to use CPs in other passive microwave circuit applications.