Silver Nanowire based Flexible, Transparent, Wideband Antenna for 5G Band Application

A transparent, flexible antenna can be utilized on car windows, solar cells, and similar applications to make use of the existing space for communication. In this work, a flexible, transparent, and wideband mm-wave monopole antenna has been designed, fabricated and tested. The proposed antennas have been realized by inkjet printing of custom made silver nanowire (Ag NW) ink. The antenna shows ultra-wide bandwidth up to 26 GHz (from 18 GHz to 44 GHz), high radiation efficiency of 55% and a maximum gain of 1.45 dBi. In addition, more than 90% transparency has been obtained due to the high transparency of the Ag NW and the slot structure. The excellent performance enables the proposed antenna suitable for various applications.