Additive manufacturing of flexible transparent antenna with excellent radiation performance embedded in PDMS

Abstract The flexible transparent antenna is an innovative type of antenna designed to meet the usage requirements such as high transparency, low profile, and compact size, etc. However, the fabrication of flexible transparent antenna with excellent transmittance and radiation performance has been a challenge that limits the wide application of flexible transparent antennas. Therefore, this paper proposes a method of a flexible transparent antenna using metal mesh embedded in PDMS that integrates electric-field-driven microjet 3D printing and plating. Based on the proposed method, a coplanar waveguide-fed monopole transparent antenna and a frequency selective surface (FSS) is designed for verification. The results show that the fabricated flexible transparent antenna with 83% transmittance obtains a bandwidth of 3.2–4.8 GHz, the peak gain in the operating band is greater than 5 dB, and the in-band radiation efficiency reaches more than 80%, which can be used in 5 G n77,n78 and n79 bands. The fabricated FSS is integrated into the back of the transparent antenna, which reduces the specific absorption rate by 35% and improves the gain of the transparent antenna, which verifies the feasibility of the method. Therefore, the proposed method is expected to have good application prospects in the fabrication of high-performance flexible wearable transparent antennas.