Carbon Nanotube Thin-Film Antennas

Abstract

Multiwalled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) and single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) dipole antennas have been successfully designed, fabricated, and tested. Antennas of varying lengths were fabricated using flexible bulk MWCNT sheet material and evaluated to confirm the validity of a full-wave antenna design equation. The ∼20× improvement in electrical conductivity provided by chemically doped SWCNT thin films over MWCNT sheets presents an opportunity for the fabrication of thin-film antennas, leading to potentially simplified system integration and optical transparency. The resonance characteristics of a fabricated chlorosulfonic acid-doped SWCNT thin-film antenna demonstrate the feasibility of the technology and indicate that when the sheet resistance of the thin film is >40 ohm/sq no power is absorbed by the antenna and that a sheet resistance of <10 ohm/sq is needed to achieve a 10 dB return loss in the unbalanced antenna. The dependence of the return loss performance on the SWCNT sheet resistance is consistent with unbalanced metal, metal oxide, and other CNT-based thin-film antennas, and it provides a framework for which other thin-film antennas can be designed.

Printable Materials for the Realization of High Performance RF Components: Challenges and Opportunities

“…Georgia Tech researchers were the first to demonstrate a printed log-periodic Koch-Dipole array antenna that has a much reduced areal footprint owing to its design [111]. An interesting dipole antenna was printed with a carbon nanotube (CNT) ink with a resonance at 2 GHz; however, a 10 Ω/☐ sheet resistance was required to give a −10 dB S 11 [112]. A Yagi-Uda antenna was aerosol jet printed using Ag (5.13 × 10 6 S/m) on a printed Vero White Plus (ε = 2.8, tanδ = 0.04) by He and coworkers which shows a low profile at 24 GHz with a 26.4 dB return loss with a 3.3 dBi [113].…”

2D titanium carbide (MXene) for wireless communication

“…In the past decade, carbon-based nanomaterials have been extensively investigated in wireless communication applications. For example, carbon onions ( 6 ), carbon nanotubes (CNTs) ( 7 , 8 ), and graphene ( 9 , 10 ) were used for the fabrication of antennas. Other two-dimensional (2D) materials, such as the metallic 1T phase of MoS 2 , were explored for fabrication of electronic devices operating in the gigahertz region ( 11 ).…”

Ink-injected dual-band antennas based on graphene flakes, carbon nanotubes and silver nanowires

“…GFs, CNTs and NWs-Ag have emerged as good candidates for lightweight, durable, 5G and radiolocation antennas, due to their unique physical and electrical properties, such as corrosion resistance, weight saving, reliability and enhanced electrical characteristics. [14][15][16] The microstructures of Me-CNTs, NWs-Ag, GFs, and a semi-CNTs/NWs-Ag complex were investigated using Raith e-line plus SEM, as presented in Fig. 2…”