Inkjet printed ultra wideband spiral antenna using integrated balun on liquid crystal polymer (LCP)

Author

Kim, Sangkil ; Tentzeris, Manos M. ; Jin, Guiping ; Nikolaou, Symeon

Author_Institution

Sch. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Georgia Inst. of Technol., Atlanta, GA, USA

fYear

2012

fDate

8-14 July 2012

Firstpage

1

Lastpage

2

Abstract

In this paper, an ultra wideband spiral antenna with a planar, integrated balun is inkjet printed on liquid crystal polymer (LCP) substrate and operates successfully from 1 GHz up to 8 GHz. An exponentially tapered spiral microstrip balun is used for, the matching of the 130 Ω input impedance, the characteristic impedance (Z₀) of 50 Ω, at the feed point. The equiangular spiral antenna is planar and low profile since a bulky balun is not required. Both the microstrip balun and the spiral arms are inkjet printed on LCP. The fabricated antenna covers a wideband frequency range (1~8GHz) that corresponds to L, S, and C bands.

Keywords

UHF antennas; antenna feeds; baluns; ink jet printing; liquid crystal polymers; microstrip antennas; planar antennas; spiral antennas; ultra wideband antennas; C-bands; L-bands; LCP substrate; S-bands; characteristic impedance; equiangular spiral antenna; exponentially tapered spiral microstrip balun; feed point; frequency 1 GHz to 8 GHz; inkjet printed ultrawideband spiral antenna; integrated balun; liquid crystal polymer; planar integrated balun; resistance 130 ohm; resistance 50 ohm; Impedance; Impedance matching; Microstrip; Spirals; Substrates; Ultra wideband antennas;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Antennas and Propagation Society International Symposium (APSURSI), 2012 IEEE

Conference_Location

Chicago, IL

ISSN

1522-3965

Print_ISBN

978-1-4673-0461-0

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/APS.2012.6349039

Filename

6349039