Progress in conductive polymer antennas based on free-standing polypyrrole and PEDOT: PSS

In this paper, various realizations of microwave antennas based on free-standing conductive polymers including polypyrrole (PPy) and PEDOT:PSS (PEDOT) are reviewed in regard to two significant aspects: improvement of their efficiency and exploitation of their mechanical flexibility for antenna designs. On the one hand, with strategies such as simple chemical material treatments, deployment of non-resonant antenna structure and multilayer configurations, very high antenna efficiencies can be achieved. On the other hand, through the utilization of the conductive polymers and flexible, robust and low-loss substrates, reproducible antenna mechanical conformability can be achieved. All these facts suggest that conductive polymers are promising as conductor materials for flexible and wearable antenna designs.