3-D-Printed Microwave and THz Devices Using Polymer Jetting Techniques

3-D additive manufacturing (AM) offers unprecedented flexibility in the realization of complicated 3-D structures. Polymer jetting is one of the promising 3-D AM techniques that utilizes photosensitive polymers as the build material and is capable of precisely printing electromagnetic (EM) components up into the THz range. In this paper, important design and implementation aspects of polymer-jetting-based 3-D-printed EM components are discussed. A number of 3-D-printable polymer materials and their broadband EM characterization from GHz to THz are introduced. Design methodologies specific for 3-D-printed antennas and other EM components are presented. As examples, various 3-D-printed devices operating from GHz to THz frequency, including electromagnetic crystals (EMXT), waveguide, horn antenna, gradient index (GRIN) lenses, as well as 3-D AM-enabled new designs, such as millimeter wave (mmW)/THz, reflect array antennas, computer-generated THz holograms, and so on are reviewed. Moreover, current limitations and possible future improvements of the polymer jetting technique for EM applications are discussed. This type of 3-D AM technique is likely to enable many novel antenna and circuit architectures as well as various interesting 3-D metamaterial structures.