An On-Glass Optically Transparent Monopole Antenna with Ultrawide Bandwidth for Solar Energy Harvesting

Abstract

An on-glass optically transparent monopole antenna with ultrawide bandwidth is presented in this work, and the proposed antenna is of ring shape and coplanar waveguide fed structure. Optically transparent indium tin oxide (ITO) thin film with a thickness of ~160 nm is used as the conductive layer, which is sputtered on an optically transparent glass substrate. An impedance bandwidth of 6 GHz from 1 to 7 GHz is achieved, with a return loss lower than −10 dB, meaning a fractional bandwidth of 150%. The proposed antenna exhibits reasonable radiations of omni-directionality in the H plane and bi-directionality in the E plane. Like other transparent antennas discussed in literature, the antenna gain is relatively low (−4 dBi at 5 GHz). In order to optimize the antenna performance, multi-film approach is proposed to reduce its sheet resistance, and the result shows that the antenna gain at 4 GHz can be improved from −8 dBi to 5 dBi when optimizing the sheet resistance from 10 Ω/sq to 0.01 Ω/sq. The designed antenna possesses a high optical transparency, which makes it easy to integrate to the surface of windows or display panels, and it can be applied for solar energy harvesting and many other ultra-wideband applications, with little chance of detection.

Transparent Antenna for Green Communication Feature: A Systematic Review on Taxonomy Analysis, Open Challenges, Motivations, Future Directions and Recommendations

“…And as Compact and Transparent Antennas using a plexiglass substrate with AgHT-8 for 5G communication systems [18] , or soda lime glass substrate with fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) for wireless local area network (WLAN) [36] . and as Optically Transparent Antennas using glass as a substrate with indium tin oxide (ITO) for solar energy harvesting [29] , or for car network communication application [33] , or using glass as substrate with AZO/AgNWs for Bluetooth communication [44] , or using glass as substrate with AgHT-8 for WLAN [19] and wireless applications [20] , or using glass as substrate with AgHT-4 for Wi-Fi [26] , or using a plexiglass substrate with AgHT-8 for wireless multiple-input and multiple output (MIMO) system [21] and smart devices [24] , or using a polyimide as substrate with TIO Terahertz communication [41] and satellites , radar systems [42] , and using a MWCNT loaded ITO and TIO for Terahertz communication [35] , and using a borosilicate glass substrate with FTO [37] or Pyrex glass substrate with FTO [38] for outdoor applications such as transparent antenna over solar cells , and using a Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) substrate with AgHT-8 thin film for (RFID) tags [22] and UWB home entertainment network [17] , commercial and medical applications [40] , and using a sapphire substrate with gallium-doped zinc oxide (GZO) thin film for smart city concept [7] , and using a quartz substrate with graphene layers for practical applications [45] , or using Perspex acrylic dielectric substrate with (AgHT-8) thin film for wireless applications [23] , or using a glass substrates with ITO films for millimeter wave bands [30] , or using a plexiglass substrate with AgHT-8 short range multiband versatile wireless applications [28]. And can be as Transparent and Flexible Antennas using glass or polymer as substrate with AZO for window-integrated wireless sensor node [39] , or using a polyimide as substrate with IZTO/Ag/IZTO (IAI) for wearable glasses [46] and using polyamide substrate for computer laptop [3] , or using a Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) substrate with transparent silver nanowire (AgNWs) for automobile window, liquid crystal display, organi...…”

“…The last challenge category is (5) integrating solar cells, antennas, and other elements deployed in limited space, such as CubeSats or even smaller satellites. Integrating optically transparent antennas with solar cells [29,39,82] is one of the toughest challenges to install wireless sensor nodes in modern settings as most small sensor nodes are run by battery [39].…”

“…Some types of sputtering are as follows: DC diode sputtering, RF sputtering, DC Triode Sputtering, Magnetron, and Reactive sputtering. The following are reported in the literature: pulsed DC magnetron sputter [3], RF magnetron sputtering and spincoating [29], DC magnetron sputtering [41,66], DC pulse sputter instrument [44], RF sputtering technique [36], DC sputtering [69,89], RF magnetron sputtering [23,51], and sputtering [50,97]. Figure 12.…”

“…Antennas have been integrated with silicon solar cells for the following purposes: satellite communications [65,79], CubeSat applications [81,86], solar cell application [32,67,91], Bluetooth antenna communication [39], 12 GHz applications [80], and small satellites [11,29].…”

Silver Sandwiched ITO Based Transparent Antenna Array for RF Energy Harvesting in 5G Mid-Range of Frequencies

“…Therefore, reducing losses within the TA conductor layer by dropping associated Rs while maintaining transparency is a real challenge. The antenna's TCL usually obeys two main classifications, the first is meshed metal thin film patterns [11]- [13] while the other is transparent thin film patterns [14], [15]. There are many discrepancies between the meshed based designs and conductive metal oxide films.…”