Alumina 3-D Printed Wide-Angle Partial Maxwell Fish-Eye Lens Antenna

Abstract

This paper presents a wide-angle partial Maxwell Fish-Eye (PMFE) lens antenna for W-band millimeter-wave communication, which is realized by alumina 3D printing using lithography-based ceramic manufacturing (LCM). To achieve the targeted permittivity profile, in addition to structural measures, the solid state porosity of alumina, and hence its material permittivity, is controlled by tuning the sintering temperature. The relative permittivity of bulk alumina was set at 5.13 with sintering temperature of 1350 °C, instead of being 9.2 with sintering temperature of 1650 °C. The fabricated 3D lens with a diameter of 33.7 mm achieves a peak realized gain of 25 dBi at a frequency of 109.5 GHz at the boresight, demonstrating a field-ofview (FoV) of ±42° with a planar lens surface.