Transparent 0° phase shifter using micro‐metal mesh conductive film

Abstract

The design of a novel transparent 0°phase shifter (PS) using a proprietary self-assembling nano-particle technology-based micro-metal mesh (MM) conductive film is presented. The transparent MM conductive film has a sheet resistance of 0.7 Ω/sq and a visible-light transmission of 75%, resulting in high transparency and good conductivity. The proposed transparent PS is placed on a 2 mm-thick glass substrate of dielectric 5.7 and designed to operate at 2.45 GHz. A layer of MM film placed at the back of the glass serves as a ground. The transparent PS delivered a measured phase shift of 2.5°. The transparent PS can be used as a building block for realising a transparent Butler matrix (BM) beam forming network for inter/intra-vehicle wireless communication in the intelligent transport system. Besides being transparent, the proposed PS has a 0.25 mm profile excluding the glass substrate. These advantages greatly enhance the PS's potential to be used also as a BM building component that can be mounted onto the glass surfaces of buildings for future fifth generation (5G) indoor wireless communications.

A Review on Conductive and Transparent Materials Used in the Design of Transparent Antennas

“…For the metallic mesh (e: film thickness), the resistance per square is given by: self-assembly, it has a very remarkable property, microwave (Figure 12) [31]. Not only high optical transparency, but also high electrical conductivity.…”

An Optically Transparent Metasurface-Based Resonant Cavity Fed by Patch Antenna for Improved Gain

“…Recently, some microwave components, such as antennas and couplers, have been designed using transparent conductive film (TCF) for the purpose of aesthetics [9,10,11,12,13]. There are a lot of kinds of optically transparent and electrically TCFs manufactured by Cima Nano Tech company using self-assembling nanoparticle technology [9,10,11]. The sheet resistance of micro metal mesh conductive (MMMC) film is much lower than other TCFs such as indium tin oxide (ITO) [12], AgHT-8 and AgHT-4 [13].…”

“…The sheet resistance of micro metal mesh conductive (MMMC) film is much lower than other TCFs such as indium tin oxide (ITO) [12], AgHT-8 and AgHT-4 [13]. Therefore, the microwave components using MMMC film will have less Ohmic loss, and this conductive film has already been applied in antenna [9], branch-line coupler [10], phase shifter [11].…”