Fabrication and Measurement of Electrohydrodynamic Inkjet Antenna for 5G Applications

In this paper, a single antenna and an antenna array operating in the 5G n48 band were fabricated and measured using electrohydrodynamic inkjet (EHDIJ) printing. EHDIJ’s performance is compared to piezoelectric inkjet for the printing of antennas [1] - [2] with emphasis in minimum drop volume (i.e. 1 picoliter to 250 femtoliter) and their corresponding capabilities when using silver- and gold-based inks and multilayer stacks. Through the manufacturing of the antennas, EHDIJ is shown to be repeatable and able to achieve resolutions of less than 100 µm while using silver and gold-based inks and producing structure with predictable RF performance. To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first reported case of fabrication and antenna pattern measurement of an EHDIJ printed antenna array.