Design, fabrication and characterization of a new wideband antenna based on a Polyaniline/Carbon coated Cobalt composite

The new generation of polymer materials has the facility to conduct electricity, radiate and concurrently be flexible. Accordingly, the possibility of implementation of a flexible antenna opens the door to many interesting applications including body-worn ones. This paper presents the design of a CPW-fed monopole antenna, based on a Carbon coated Cobalt (CCo) charged Polyaniline (PANI). A wideband antenna design approach is proposed to develop a single antenna that can be employed by diverse wireless technologies. In particular, in this paper the frequency bands of interest are [2.4-2.48] GHz (WiFi) and [5.15-5.825] GHz (wireless networks). Conception, realization and characterization steps of the composite based wideband antenna are presented. The composite (PANI/CCo) fabricated, whose morphology was studied via scanning electron microscopy, has a conductivity of 7500 S/m. The antenna is printed on a 130pm thick Kapton® substrate. A good agreement between measurements and simulation data is observed.