Equivalent Conductivity Characterization of Silver-Coated Plastic Antenna Components in Ku, K and Ka Bands

The equivalent conductivity has been measured in this paper for characterization of silver-coated plastic antenna components in Ku-Ka bands by especially developed resonance method. The aim is to replace the bulk conductivity of a given metal layers with the actual value of this parameter in the 3-D simulators for implementation of more reliable numerical simulations of the metallized plastic antenna structures. The method is based on determination of unloaded Q factors of modes in resonators with minimized surface-to-volume ratio with one flat wall formed by the conductive surface under test. The measurement procedure has been successfully tested for different metallized samples with conductivity between 50-6.2 x 10⁷ S/m and for different roughness, protective coatings and conditions.