X-Band 3D-Printed Metal-Insert Twist-Component for Bandpass Filter Applications

This work presents the development of an X-band twisted metal-insert bandpass filter as a monolithic 3D-printed structure. The component serves as a compact solution for the incorporation of a fourth-order bandpass filter response while simultaneously rotating the polarization by 90 degrees as a twist-component. The structure is fabricated using low-cost stereolithography 3D-printing and metallized using a simple copper electroplating method. The measured results exhibit an unloaded Q-factor of approximately 2600 and have an insertion loss better then 0.44 dB throughout the passband, ultimately demonstrating a unique use of the metal-insert filter technique and providing a novel presentation on integrated monolithic structures.