Directly drawing metamaterials on paper based on an automatic drawing machine

Abstract

Paper-based metamaterial is one kind of metamaterial based on the paper substrate, recently drawing a lot of attention due to its fascinating features. This paper proposes another fabrication solution to realize paper-based metamaterials by directly drawing instead of inkjet printing. The drawing tools we used included mechanical pencils, conductive ink pens, and a computer-controlled drawing machine. Three types of paper-based metamaterials—polarization converter, absorber, and conformal coding metasurface—have been fabricated by the drawing technique. The performances of these paper-based metamaterials have been validated through both simulations and measurements. The proposed drawing technique offers an economical, convenient, and flexible way to fabricate paper-based metamaterials with the advantages of thinness, lightness, and softness. It would be promising to apply in other regions of microwaves and electronics.