As devices get more connected and communication increase in density, new challenges arise. The usual frequency bands used are getting crowded by the number of applications, and the relatively low working frequencies limit the available bandwidth and speed. Applications are now implemented in the GHz, but next generation devices shift towards higher frequencies into the millimetre band (30-300 GHz), seeking larger bandwidths, smaller devices and antenna size and improvement in spatial resolution. (High bitrate communications, Backhaul, radars, imaging, bio-sensors…) These emerging devices have a need for passive framework for feeding and supporting while keeping the efficiency high, the dimensions short and the bandwidth large. The problematic of this thesis is to devise an innovative way to answer those needs. Some solutions have of course emerged in the literature, and the plan here is to fork from those pre-existing results. Most solutions revolve around using vertically aligned micro/nano-structures to guide a wave or to reduce wave velocity. The idea is to introduce Vertically-Aligned Carbon Nanotube Forests (VA-CNT) into those designs, for they display inherently conductive anisotropy while improving from the previous solutions in terms of density and equivalent conductivity and ease of fabrication.
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