Inkjet printed circuits on fibrous substrates for environmentally-friendly radio-frequency electronics applications

Abstract

Additive printing technology like inkjet printing provides the ability to increase the circuit fabrication speed and possibility to implement the desired circuit on unconventional substrates such as wood and paper. It is tempting to utilize paper based substrate in the realization of electronic devices since it is really low-cost, recyclable, available everywhere and compatible with inkjet printing technology. The fabrication of environmentally-friendly and low-cost products is one of the main goals in any manufacturing fields which might not be feasible using every technologies or techniques. This demand can be fulfilled by exploiting paper as the substrate and inkjet printing as the fabrication technique. Moreover, power consumed by a device is one of the most important parameters especially for wireless and mobile applications. Power consumption reduction is a really challenging procedure in many circuits; thus, preparing the desired supply power from useless sources can be a practical alternative. The absorption of the energy of the useless transmitted electromagnetics signals in different frequency bands is so called power-harvesting. In this project the whole procedure in order to fabricate an antenna for the power-harvesting application using inkjet printing technology on fibrous paper based substrate has been investigated. For this purpose electrical parameters of cardboard and silver ink which are used as the substrate and conductor, respectively, were extracted. Then, according to the demands the required antenna was designed, simulated and fabricated.