Copper Paste Printed Paper-Based Dual-Band Antenna for Wearable Wireless Electronics

Abstract

Wearable wireless electronics is becoming a significant research area because of the unique features of this technology. Within this field printed antennas are the key electrical component accomplishing the signal transmission and energy harvesting tasks and at the same these antennas need to be lightweight, environmentally friendly, safe to wear, and easy to conform. Currently, the majority of available paper-based antennas are designed for RFID, sensing, UWB, WLAN, and medical applications, with just a few being utilized in wearable applications, particularly for wireless body area network (WBAN). Furthermore, few studies have been conducted on the usage of printable copper conductive materials and low-temperature plasma technique for the fabrication of such antennas. This study demonstrates the realization of a dual-band paper-based wearable antenna by screen-printing of a plasma-sintered conductive copper paste. The copper paste, composed of 51 wt% solid particles, can easily produce desired conductive patterns on photo paper after printing and a subsequent plasma sintering, with a good adhesion. The antenna designed on photopaper operates in the frequency bands of 1.73–2.55 GHz and 7.66–8.89 GHz. Free-space simulation and measurement results reveal that the antenna exhibits stable radiation performance in the targeted WBAN (2.4–2.4835 GHz) and X uplink (7.9–8.4 GHz) frequency bands, together with low profile, excellent conformality and acceptable SAR values on the body and no electronic waste formed after disposal, making it a competitive candidate for usage in wearable wireless electronics.