Ag Ink-Jet Printed CPW with Micro-Surface Cavities: Effects of Cavity Removal on RF Characteristics

This paper presents a study on the RF characteristics of CPW transmission lines with micro-surface cavities generated by Ag ink-jet printing. The cavities were formed by printing Ag ink on a substrate and then drying the ink. The size and number of cavities changed depending on the drying temperature. The RF characteristics of the transmission lines were measured using a vector network analyzer. The insertion loss at 3 GHz was measured to be 0.046 dB/mm at 30 degrees C, 0.043 dB/mm at 65 degrees C, and 0.039 dB/mm at 100 degrees C. The results show that the presence of the cavities degrades the RF characteristics of the transmission lines, particularly at high frequencies.