Small Footprint Evaluation of Metal Coatings for Additive Manufacturing

Rutile resonators have been used in the past to characterize high-temperature superconductors. In this work we describe a novel use of this type of resonator: the characterization of surface resistance in metal coatings deposited on plastic substrates at 9.1 GHz. A very small sample surface (about 1 cm
²
) is required due to the high permittivity of rutile. We describe the use of the resonator to analyze pairs of small samples and to analyze the homogeneity of a sample set diced from a larger metallized surface. We also show a novel experimental method to determine the geometrical factors in dielectric resonators.