Improving the Radiation Efficiency of Liquid Metal Antenna with Polarization Agility

This paper proposes a new approach to realize a polarization agility antenna using liquid metal (eutectic gallium indium) and additive manufacturing. The antenna is a combination of both liquid metal alloy and copper tape which is adhered to a polyethylene terephthalate (PET) film. The polarization is controlled by the position of the pressure-driven liquid metal encased in four cavities constructed by both the elastic dielectric material (i.e. Ecoflex) and PET film. The proposed fabrication technique not only enhances the radiation efficiency compared to conventional ones because of using minimum amount of lossy materials, but also manages to maintain its bendability. For the proof of concept, a reconfigurable aperture coupled patch antenna operating at 2.45 GHz with multi-polarization function is designed, fabricated and measured.