Silver nanoflake printed flexible composite broadband dipole antenna

Abstract

In this paper, a flexible composite broadband dipole antenna printed with silver nanoflakes is presented. The antenna is composed of two identically printed split-ring resonators surrounding each arm of a printed dipole element. Each arm of the dipole and the split-ring resonator to which it couples is printed on the top and bottom sides of a thin dielectric substrate to give the antenna its flexibility. The compact antenna has overall dimensions of 10 mm × 74.8 mm × 0.254 mm (0.063λ × 0.473λ × 0.0016λ at 1.9 GHz). The thin, flexible antenna produces stable, linearly polarized radiations in a broad bandwidth. Two antennas printed with copper and silver nanoflakes on a thin dielectric substrate were studied and their characteristics were compared. The printed antenna with copper cladding had a fractional bandwidth of 52.63%, peak gain of 2.14 dBi, and radiation efficiency of > 92%. The printed antenna with silver nanoflakes had a fractional bandwidth of 48.14%, peak gain of -0.78 dBi, and radiation efficiency of > 15% within the impedance bandwidth.