A Millimeter-Wave Microstrip Antenna Array on Ultra-Flexible Micromachined Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) Polymer

Author

Hage-Ali, Sami ; Tiercelin, Nicolas ; Coquet, Philippe ; Sauleau, Ronan ; Fujita, Hiroyuki ; Preobrazhensky, Vladimir ; Pernod, Philippe

Author_Institution

Joint Eur. Lab. LEMAC, Univ. des Sci. et Technol. de Lille, Villeneuve d´´Ascq, France

Volume

8

fYear

2009

fDate

7/1/1905 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

1306

Lastpage

1309

Abstract

The use of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), an ultra flexible polymer, as a substrate for the realization of reconfigurable microwave devices in the 60-GHz band is presented. As bulk PDMS is demonstrated to be lossy at millimeter waves, membrane-supported devices are considered. A new reliable and robust technological process has been developed to micromachine membrane-supported transmission lines and microstrip antenna arrays. It is shown that transmission lines printed on 20-??m-thick membranes exhibit similar performances as bulk substrates commonly used at millimeter-wave frequencies. A microstrip antenna array has been also designed and fabricated to demonstrate the feasibility of directive antennas supported by large membranes. Promising applications for mechanical beam-steering, beam-forming, and frequency-tunable antennas are expected.

Keywords

directive antennas; membranes; microstrip antenna arrays; millimetre wave antenna arrays; polymers; substrates; directive antennas; flexble micromachined polymer; frequency 60 GHz; mechanical beam-steering; millimeter-wave microstrip antenna arrays; polydimethylsiloxane; reconfigurable antennas; Flexible polymer; membrane; polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS); reconfigurable antennas;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1536-1225

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/LAWP.2009.2037590

Filename

5342509