Wideband Dielectric Characterization of 3-D Printable Triethylene Glycol Dimethacrylate Ester Plastic

The plastic materials form an important constituent of connectors and printed circuit board substrates. At high data transmission rates in interconnect devices, knowledge of the plastic's performance, such as its dielectric properties is an imperative and challenging research task for signal integrity engineers. In this paper, wideband dielectric characterization of triethylene glycol dimethacrylate ester (TrEGDMA) organic plastic material is presented using the transmission line technique with a coaxial airline in the frequency range of 1-18 GHz. The Debye models are used to analytically describe the frequency dependence of the extracted TrEGDMA dielectric properties obtained from the measured S-parameter data. A three-pole Debye model was fitted to the extracted permittivity data, where the parameters of the Debye model were obtained from a genetic algorithm. Dielectric property results coupled with its mechanical properties show that this organic plastic, which is widely used in 3-D printing, can be used as a substrate for short traces and in connector housing.