Screen-Printed Flexible Antennas for 24-GHz ISM Band and mmWave Applications

In this work, the flexible antennas additively manufactured via screen printing of copper conductive inks are presented. Antennas, such as straight dipoles, meandering dipoles, and circular disk monopoles, are designed for operation at 24 GHz and then manufactured on a variety of flexible substrates, namely, polyimide, glass, and alumina ribbon ceramics (ARCs). A resolution of $50~\mu $ m width and spacing was obtained at a printing speed of 10000 mm²/s. A minimum bend radius of 6.25 mm was achieved for the flexible antennas. Antenna’s return loss and antenna pattern were measured and found to be in agreement with simulation. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of a flexible screen-printed 24-GHz antenna on ceramics with copper metallization.