Int. J. Appl. Ceram. Technol.

, 12 [S1] E164–E173 (2015)

DOI:10.1111/ijac.12362

Inkjet-Printed Metal-Insulator-Metal Capacitors for Tunable

Microwave Applications
Andreas Friederich and Christian Kohler
Institute for Applied Materials (IAM), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Hermann-von-Helmholtz-Platz 1, 76344,
Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Germany
Institute for Microwave Engineering and Photonics (IMP), Technische Universit€a t Darmstadt, Merckstraße 25, 64283,
Darmstadt, Germany

Mohammad Nikfalazar, Alex Wiens, and Rolf Jakoby

Institute for Microwave Engineering and Photonics (IMP), Technische Universit€a t Darmstadt, Merckstraße 25, 64283,
Darmstadt, Germany

Werner Bauer and Joachim R. Binder*

Institute for Applied Materials (IAM), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Hermann-von-Helmholtz-Platz 1, 76344,
Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Germany

A Ba0.6Sr0.4TiO3–ZnO–B2O3 composite ink was prepared and used for the manufacturing of fully inkjet-printed metal-
insulator-metal varactors. The dielectric thick films were co-fired with printed silver electrodes at 850°C and show a fine grained
microstructure. The films have a relative permittivity of er = 129 and a dielectric loss of tan d = 0.043 at f = 3 GHz. Printed
varactors with different dielectric film thickness were prepared. The characterization of the printed structures and 3D electromag-
netic simulations of the layout reveal the strong influence of electrode inductance and fringing effects on the properties of the
components. The printed varactors reach tunabilities between 14.4% and 16.4% by applying a tuning field of 5 V/lm. To dem-
onstrate the capability of the inkjet printing process for the preparation of tunable microwave devices, a fully inkjet-printed phase
shifter was fabricated. It is based on seven pairs of the printed varactors and reaches a phase shift of 180° and a figure of merit
of 19°/dB at 3.4 GHz.

Introduction nas.3–6 Currently, most attention is given to the solid

Currently, there is a large interest in using inkjet
printing for the manufacturing of low-cost electronic
components. In particular, the high flexibility of the pro-
cess gives significant advantages over conventional manu-
facturing processes. The main feature of the inkjet
printing process is that it is contact- and maskless.
Hence, it allows a preparation directly from a digital
model. Furthermore, the simultaneous use of multiple
printheads allows a fast production of graded compo-
nents and multilayer structures.1,2 Due to the flexibility,
it is beneficial to use the inkjet printing process for a
future microwave device preparation.
Ferroelectric ceramics are promising candidates for
passive tunable devices such as phase shifters, tunable-
matching networks, tunable filters, and tunable anten-
*joachim.binder@kit.edu
© 2014 The American Ceramic Society
solution BaxSr1-xTiO3 (BST). This is due to the fact that
the material shows low dielectric loss and a considerable
field dependency of permittivity (i.e., tunability).
There are only a few publications that deal with ink-
jet printing of tunable dielectrics and none of them
reports a characterization above 1 GHz or the prepara-
tion of fully inkjet-printed microwave devices. Ding
et al.7 studied the rheology and gelation behavior of col-
loidal solutions (sols) for inkjet printing of BST. Kayda-
nova et al.8,9 printed a BST sol and achieved a tunability
of 30% at E = 9 V/lm in the ceramic thin films at
f = 1 GHz. Sakai et al.10–12 printed BST and BST–
MgTiO3 composite suspensions and characterized the
thick films up to 10 MHz.
There are several publications which report the suc-
cessful preparation of fully printed passive tunable micro-
wave devices.13–18 However, all of them use a screen
printing process for the device preparation. Yeo et al.13,14
www.ceramics.org/ACT Inkjet Printed Metal-Insulator-Metal Capacitors
and Hu et al.15,16 present phase shifters with high-tem-
perature sintered dielectric films (>1250°C) and subse-
quently printed silver electrodes. This method allows an
optimal thermal treatment of the dielectric thick films.
However, the low resolution of the printing process leads
to large gap sizes in the postprocessed coplanar capaci-
tances, which weakens the tuning field strength. In
contrast to this, Palukuru et al.17,18 developed a
Ba0.55Sr0.45TiO3–Li2O composition for a sintering tem-
perature of 900°C and demonstrate the preparation of
several co-fired metal-insulator-metal phase shifters.
This article deals with the preparation of fully ink-
jet-printed metal-insulator-metal capacitors for tunable
microwave devices. Therefore, a low-temperature co-fire-
able Ba0.6Sr0.4TiO3–ZnO–B2O3 composition is used,
which is based on recent investigations of Kohler et al.19
A BST–ZnO–B2O3 composite ink was prepared and
used for printing of dielectric layers. A commercially
available nanoparticle silver ink was used for the elec-
trode preparation. With these inks, multilayer capaci-
tances with different dielectric layer thickness were
prepared and characterized with respect to their topogra-
phy, microstructure, and microwave properties.
Eventually, a fully inkjet-printed phase shifter was
prepared. It successfully demonstrates the capability of
the inkjet printing process for a future tunable micro-
wave device preparation.
Inkjet-Printed Capacitance Design
Conventional microwave devices on tunable dielec-
tric thick films make use of postprocessed photo-litho-
graphic electrodes. This processing allows the preparation
of very uniform and narrow electrodes and a resolution
that is usually less than 10 lm can be achieved.3 How-
ever, due to the high cost of this process, the preparation
of fully printed devices is desirable for cost sensitive
applications. When thinking of inkjet-printed electrodes,
one must keep in mind that the resolution of the inkjet
printing process is considerably lower than a photolitho-
graphic structuring, which gives limitations regarding the
minimum achievable capacitance.
The width of an inkjet-printed line is determined by
the drop spacing and the interaction of the liquid with
the substrate. Stringer and Derby20 showed that the min-
imum achievable line width wmin of an inkjet-printed
line is equal to the diameter dT of a single droplet on
the substrate. With the geometric condition that the vol-
ume of the flying drop with diameter d0 equals the vol-
ume of the sessile drop with diameter dT and contact
angle h, one can easily derive the equation:
E165
" #1=3
4
dT ¼ d0 sin h ð1Þ
ð1  cos hÞ2 ð2 þ cos hÞ
With the condition of Stringer and Derby (wmin = dT),
the achievable line width can be calculated using the
contact angle of the ink on the substrate and the in-flight
drop diameter.
Neglecting fringing field effects, the capacitance of a
parallel-plate capacitor can be calculated with the vac-
uum permittivity e0 = 8.85 9 1012 F/m,21 the relative
permittivity er, the overlapping area A, and the thickness
of the dielectric layer h according to:
A
Cideal ¼ e0 er ð2Þ
h
In case of two rectangular overlapping printed elec-
trodes, the area is given by the line width w according to
A = w2. Assuming a given relative permittivity er, the
minimum capacitance can be adjusted by the thickness
of the dielectric layer h.
Figure 1 shows sketches and equivalent circuits of a
photolithographically structured varactor used for the
material characterization (a), the fully inkjet-printed var-
actors (b), and a unit cell of the fully inkjet-printed
phase shifter (c). The photolithographically structured
varactor consists of an Au-metallized Al2O3 substrate, a
printed BST-ZnO-B2O3 line, and an electroplated Au
top electrode. Due to the high-quality electrodes, the
varactor is suitable to determine the properties of the
dielectric films. The fully printed varactor in Fig. 1b
consists of two parallel bottom electrodes with 350 lm
distance (center to center). The electrodes are partly cov-
ered with a BST-ZnO-B2O3 line. The top electrode is
printed perpendicular to the bottom electrodes, which
leads to a series connection of two capacitances. This
approach is used to obtain a small capacitance of the var-
actor as well as to avoid printing the top electrode over
the edge of the printed dielectric. Edges usually lead to
inhomogeneities due to the different wetting behavior on
the substrate and the dielectric film. The unit cell of the
printed phase shifter, shown in Fig. 1c, consists of a
wave guide, which is periodically loaded by a series of
two varactors.
Experimental Procedure
A Ba0.6Sr0.4TiO3 powder was synthesized through a
modified sol-gel process, as described by Zhou et al.22
The powder preparation can be divided into the follow-
ing process steps: dissolution of the reagents, initiation
E170 International Journal of Applied Ceramic Technology—Friederich, et al. Vol. 12, No. S1, 2015

(a) (b)

Fig. 7. Measured capacitance (a) and quality factor (b) of the fully inkjet-printed metal-insulator-metal varactors with different thickness
of the dielectric layer. The dashed line indicates the quality factor of the dielectric Ba0.6Sr0.4TiO3–ZnO–B2O3 layer.

coefficient of determination was R2 > 0.99 in all cases
(2 9 9 regressions), which verifies the suitability of the
model. The inductance was calculated from Eq. (5) and
gives values of L = (0.40  0.03) nH for 1 layer of
BST–ZnO–B2O3 and L = (0.36  0.01) nH for two
layers. For an ideal conductor with length l and thickness
t  w, the inductance can be estimated according to
Terman30 with the equation:
 
2l w
L  0:2l ln þ 0:5 þ 0:2235 nH/mm ð6Þ
w l
For an electrode length of l = 0.8 mm, this estima-
tion leads to an inductance of L  0.5 nH, which is in
reasonable agreement with the measure values.
A 3D electromagnetic simulation (CST Microwave
Studio, CST, Germany) was carried out, to determine
the effect of fringing fields on the capacitance of the
printed varactors. For the simulation, the geometric
model from Figure 1b was used and the overall capaci-
tance of the varactors was calculated. Table II shows
the parameters and results of the simulation. The
simulated capacitances (Csim = 1.30–4.15 pF) are in
reasonable agreement with the measured ones
(Cmeas = 1.5–4.2 pF). The comparison of the simulated
capacitance values Csim with the theoretical values Cideal
(calculated according to Eq. 2) reveals the effect of
fringing fields in the printed components. While the
effect of the fringing fields on capacitance is already
16 % for one layer of BST–ZnO–B2O3, it reaches
28% for three layers.
Figure 7b shows the quality factor Q of the printed
structures. All samples undergo a decreasing quality fac-
tor with increasing frequency. This is caused by the
increasing dissipation factor of the dielectric as well as
the decreasing skin depth in the conductor films. All
samples exhibit a nearly identical behavior and values
between Q = 35 and 37 at f = 0.5 GHz. The compari-
son with the quality factor of the dielectric film
QBST = (tan d)1 reveals that the conductor loss is negli-
gible at low frequencies. However, for f > 0.5 GHz, a
deviation is observed. This is caused by the increasing
loss of the printed electrodes with higher frequency. For
f > 1.5 GHz, an additional minor deviation between the
printed varactors is observed, which is also due to reso-
nance effects in the samples with low thickness of the
dielectric layer.
Figure 8 shows the tunability of the printed varac-
tors at f = 0.5 GHz. The tuning field strength E was

Table II. Results of the 3D Electromagnetic Simulation of the Metal-Insulator-Metal Varactors

Simulation parameters* Simulation results

hBST/lm w/lm er Csim/pF Cideal/pF† FE/%‡

1 layer of BST–ZnO–B2O3 2.9 134 130 4.15 3.56 16
2 layers of BST–ZnO–B2O3 5.6 136 130 2.26 1.90 19
3 layers of BST–ZnO–B2O3 9.0 126 130 1.30 1.02 28
*Geometric parameters: 1 mm length and 350 lm distance (center–center) of the bottom lines, 200 lm excess length of the electrodes at the overlap,
2 lm electrode thickness and a frequency of f = 0.5 GHz.
†
Ideal capacitance without fringing effects. Calculated according to Eq. (2) as a series connection of two capacitors with A = w2.
‡
Fringing effect, calculated after FE = (Csim  Cideal)/Cideal.
www.ceramics.org/ACT Inkjet Printed Metal-Insulator-Metal Capacitors
v = 40 mm/s were chosen to achieve a drop spacing of
p = 80 lm. The varactor electrodes were prepared by
printing four layers of silver each. This number of layers
was chosen as a compromise between adequate thickness
of the electrodes (hAg = 2 lm) to reach a high conduc-
tivity and sufficiently narrow electrodes to reach small
capacitances. For the waveguides of the presented phase
shifter, eight layers of silver were printed to reach an
electrode thickness of about 4 lm.
After drying, the specimens were sintered for 1 h at
850°C in a tube furnace with heating rates and cooling
rates of 5 K/min.
The printed structures were characterized by chro-
matic white light interferometry (MicroProf, Fries
Research & Technology, Bergisch Gladbach, Germany).
The electrical properties of the printed capacitances and
the phase shifter were determined using a vector network
analyzer (37397C; Anritsu, Kanagawa, Japan). The mea-
surements were taken in a frequency range f = 0.1–
10 GHz at different tuning voltages in a range of
U = 0–200 V.
Results and Discussion
The inks were characterized with respect to their vis-
cosity, surface tension, density, and particle size. Fig-
ure 2a shows a micrograph of the BST–ZnO–B2O3 ink.
The measured particle size distribution of the ink is
depicted in Fig. 2b. The mean particle size of the ink
(a) (b)
Fig. 2. Scanning electron micrograph (a) and cumulative particle size distribution (b) of the Ba0.6Sr0.4TiO3–ZnO–B2O3 ink and micro-
graph of a thick film, sintered at 850°C (c).
Table I. Properties of the Printing Inks
d50/nm g/mPas
BST–ZnO–B2O3 ink 200 34.0
Ag ink <50 15.5
E167
was determined to be d50 = 200 nm. Table I summa-
rizes the measured properties of the dielectric ink and
the conductive silver ink. The medium particle diameter
of both inks is below 1% of the nozzle diameter used for
inkjet printing, which was suitable to prevent clogging
during printing. The Ohnesorge number Oh was calcu-
lated after Equation (3). For both inks, the values are
within the limits for a stable drop ejection, that is,
0.1 < Oh < 1. The printability was confirmed experi-
mentally by successfully printing both inks in different
experiments over a period of several days.
The BST–ZnO–B2O3 ink was printed on 1 lm
Au-metallized Al2O3-substrates and sintered for 1 h at
850°C. Figure 2c shows the microstructure of the sintered
thick film. Image analysis of the micrograph gives a mean
grain size of d50 = 0.14 lm. This is a bit below the mea-
sured diameter of the particles in the initial ink
(d50 = 0.20 lm). This deviation is believed to be caused
by overestimating the particle size in the inks due to
agglomerated particles as well as by underestimating the
grain size due to overlapping grains. After sintering, 2.8-
lm thick Au-electrodes were lithographically patterned on
top of the thick films. This conventional structuring allows
the preparation of capacitors with high geometrical accu-
racy and high-quality electrodes. The obtained metal-insu-
lator-metal capacitor was used to determine the relative
permittivity and the dielectric loss of the material.
Figure 3a shows the relative permittivity and the
dielectric loss of the BST–ZnO–B2O3 thick films in
the frequency range of f = 0.1–10 GHz. The relative
(c)
q/(g/cm3) c/(mN/m) h/° Oh d0/lm
1.08 23.9 9 0.67 80
1.28 18.9 21 0.38 60
E168 International Journal of Applied Ceramic Technology—Friederich, et al. Vol. 12, No. S1, 2015

(a) (b)

Fig. 3. Relative permittivity and dielectric loss of the Ba0.6Sr0.4TiO3–ZnO–B2O3 thick films over frequency (a) and tunability over tuning
field strength (b).

permittivity is nearly frequency independent in the stud-
ied interval. The measured values at f = 3 GHz are
er = 129  3. This is considerably lower than the rela-
tive permittivity of bulk Ba0.6Sr0.4TiO325 at room tem-
perature and is due to the high porosity and the small
grain size of the printed films.24,26 Previous investiga-
tions showed that a lower porosity can be achieved by
using a mixture of coarse and fine grained powders27 or
a higher amount of sintering additive.19 The dielectric
loss of the material increases with frequency. This behav-
ior is known for tunable dielectric ceramics.4,22,26,27 At
f = 3 GHz, the BST–ZnO–B2O3 thick films show a
dielectric loss of tan d = 0.043  0.004. At 10 GHz,
the dielectric loss is increased to tan d = 0.073  0.007,
which is comparable to undoped screen-printed thick
films, sintered at 1150–1200°C.26 Previous investigations
have shown that the dielectric loss of BST thick films at
microwave frequencies are mainly affected by impurities
of the material, whereas the microstructure of the films
plays a less significant role.6,22,26 Figure 3b shows the
tunability of the films at different frequencies. In the
investigated range, the films show a frequency-indepen-
dent behavior, which is in good agreement with previous
investigations on BST thick films28 and thin films.5,29
By applying a tuning voltage of U = 200 V, a tuning
field of E = 87 V/lm is reached without breakdown.
This leads to an extraordinary high tunability of the
films, which is s = 75.3%. Furthermore, a tuning field
strength of E = 10 V/lm and a tunability of s = 22.8%
is reached by applying only 23 V tuning voltage.
Silver electrodes were printed and characterized with
respect to their morphology and conductivity. A layout
with 400 lm wide lines was printed and sintered at
850°C. The line thickness was varied by printing 1–5
layers, which results in a thickness between 0.8 and
4 lm. The microstructure was investigated by SEM.
Four-wire sensing was used to determine the electric
resistance of the printed lines. The sheet conductance
was calculated with the width (400 lm) and length
(8 mm) of the lines. Figure 4 shows the microstructure
and the sheet resistance R& of the printed electrodes.
For a thickness of hAg  0.8–1.5 lm, the silver films
undergo a complete separation due to the immense sin-
tering activity at 850°C. The films are not conductive in
this case. For two printed layers (hAg  1.6–2 lm), the
sheet resistance is in the range of R& = 50–65 mΩ/&.
In this case, the films show a mostly closed network with
some separated areas. The increased path length and the
isolated areas lead to the comparable low conductance,
which corresponds to a specific conductivity of about
r  9 9 106 S/m. For three and more printed layers
(hAg > 2.4 lm), the sheet resistance further decreases
with increasing electrode thickness. This is in good
agreement with the micrographs which show some pores,
but no separated areas in this case. The specific conduc-
tance of the lines is r  35 9 106 S/m, which is
about 56% of the conductivity of bulk silver (r 
63 9 106 S/m at 20°C21) and therefore comparably
high for printed films.
Fig. 4. Sheet resistance over electrode thickness of printed silver
electrodes, sintered at 850°C.
www.ceramics.org/ACT Inkjet Printed Metal-Insulator-Metal Capacitors E169

(a) (b)

Fig. 5. Topography (a) and microscopic image (b) of a fully inkjet-printed metal-insulator-metal varactor.

Fully printed varactors were prepared by printing

two bottom electrodes with the silver ink, partly covering
them with a printed BST–ZnO–B2O3 line and subse-
quently printing a top silver electrode. The thickness of
the dielectric layer was varied by printing 1–3 layers. Fig-
ure 5 shows the topography (a) and a microscopic image
(b) of a printed varactor with three layers of BST–ZnO–
B2O3.
Calculating the minimum achievable line width for
the electrodes after Eq. (1) with the drop diameter
d0 = 60 lm and the contact angle h = 21° gives a value
of wmin = 140 lm. The achieved line width in the
printing experiments is even a bit smaller
(w = 130 lm). This is caused by the drying at an ele-
vated temperature, which prevents the drops from
spreading to their equilibrium condition due to fast
evaporation of the solvent. The thickness of the dielectric
layer was determined by evaluating line profiles of each
specimen type (9 per type). For 1-layer BST, the film
thickness was hBST = (2.9  0.1) lm. For 2 and 3 lay-
ers, it was increased to hBST = (5.6  0.1) lm and
hBST = (9.0  0.3) lm, respectively. The thickness of
the silver electrodes was about 2 lm in all cases (4
printed layers each).
Figure 6 shows the cross-section of a printed varac-
tor. The micrograph shows a homogeneous film topogra-
phy of the printed dielectric with a thickness of about
hBST = 9 lm. Compared to the BST film, the top and
bottom electrode are less uniform. This is believed to be
due to the small initial particle size and the immense sin-
tering activity of the silver at 850°C. At the moment,
there is no commercially available inkjet silver ink at the
market which is optimized for a temperature treatment
above 300°C. It is believed that a higher electrode qual-
ity can be achieved by the use of a silver–palladium ink
or with a larger initial particle size.
Figure 7a shows the measured capacitance of the test
structures with different thickness of the dielectric layer
hBST. At f = 0.5 GHz, the structures show a capacitance
Fig. 6. SEM cross-section of a fully inkjet-printed metal-insula-
tor-metal varactor.
between Cmeas = 1.5 pF (3 layers of BST–ZnO–B2O3,
hBST = 9.0 lm) and 4.1 pF (1 layer of BST–ZnO–
B2O3, hBST = 2.9 lm). For hBST = 2.9 lm, the mea-
sured capacity shows a strong increase with higher
frequency due to resonance effects. Assuming an ideal
second-order low-pass filter with capacitance C0 and res-
onance frequency f0, the measured capacitance Cmeas(f)
should follow the equation:
C0
Cmeas ðf Þ ¼ ð4Þ
1  ðf =f0 Þ2
For the resonance frequency yields further with the
inductance L:
1
f0 ¼ pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi ð5Þ
2p LC0
A regression of the measurement data for 1 layer of
BST–ZnO–B2O3 (hBST = 2.9 lm) gives a capacitance
value of C0 = (4.0  0.6) pF and a resonance frequency
of f0 = (4.0  0.4) GHz. For two layers of BST–ZnO–
B2O3 (hBST = 5.6 lm), the calculated values are
C0 = (2.4  0.2) pF and f0 = (5.4  0.3) GHz. The
E170 International Journal of Applied Ceramic Technology—Friederich, et al. Vol. 12, No. S1, 2015

(a) (b)

Fig. 7. Measured capacitance (a) and quality factor (b) of the fully inkjet-printed metal-insulator-metal varactors with different thickness
of the dielectric layer. The dashed line indicates the quality factor of the dielectric Ba0.6Sr0.4TiO3–ZnO–B2O3 layer.

coefficient of determination was R2 > 0.99 in all cases
(2 9 9 regressions), which verifies the suitability of the
model. The inductance was calculated from Eq. (5) and
gives values of L = (0.40  0.03) nH for 1 layer of
BST–ZnO–B2O3 and L = (0.36  0.01) nH for two
layers. For an ideal conductor with length l and thickness
t  w, the inductance can be estimated according to
Terman30 with the equation:
 
2l w
L  0:2l ln þ 0:5 þ 0:2235 nH/mm ð6Þ
w l
For an electrode length of l = 0.8 mm, this estima-
tion leads to an inductance of L  0.5 nH, which is in
reasonable agreement with the measure values.
A 3D electromagnetic simulation (CST Microwave
Studio, CST, Germany) was carried out, to determine
the effect of fringing fields on the capacitance of the
printed varactors. For the simulation, the geometric
model from Figure 1b was used and the overall capaci-
tance of the varactors was calculated. Table II shows
the parameters and results of the simulation. The
simulated capacitances (Csim = 1.30–4.15 pF) are in
reasonable agreement with the measured ones
(Cmeas = 1.5–4.2 pF). The comparison of the simulated
capacitance values Csim with the theoretical values Cideal
(calculated according to Eq. 2) reveals the effect of
fringing fields in the printed components. While the
effect of the fringing fields on capacitance is already
16 % for one layer of BST–ZnO–B2O3, it reaches
28% for three layers.
Figure 7b shows the quality factor Q of the printed
structures. All samples undergo a decreasing quality fac-
tor with increasing frequency. This is caused by the
increasing dissipation factor of the dielectric as well as
the decreasing skin depth in the conductor films. All
samples exhibit a nearly identical behavior and values
between Q = 35 and 37 at f = 0.5 GHz. The compari-
son with the quality factor of the dielectric film
QBST = (tan d)1 reveals that the conductor loss is negli-
gible at low frequencies. However, for f > 0.5 GHz, a
deviation is observed. This is caused by the increasing
loss of the printed electrodes with higher frequency. For
f > 1.5 GHz, an additional minor deviation between the
printed varactors is observed, which is also due to reso-
nance effects in the samples with low thickness of the
dielectric layer.
Figure 8 shows the tunability of the printed varac-
tors at f = 0.5 GHz. The tuning field strength E was

Table II. Results of the 3D Electromagnetic Simulation of the Metal-Insulator-Metal Varactors

Simulation parameters* Simulation results

hBST/lm w/lm er Csim/pF Cideal/pF† FE/%‡

1 layer of BST–ZnO–B2O3 2.9 134 130 4.15 3.56 16
2 layers of BST–ZnO–B2O3 5.6 136 130 2.26 1.90 19
3 layers of BST–ZnO–B2O3 9.0 126 130 1.30 1.02 28
*Geometric parameters: 1 mm length and 350 lm distance (center–center) of the bottom lines, 200 lm excess length of the electrodes at the overlap,
2 lm electrode thickness and a frequency of f = 0.5 GHz.
†
Ideal capacitance without fringing effects. Calculated according to Eq. (2) as a series connection of two capacitors with A = w2.
‡
Fringing effect, calculated after FE = (Csim  Cideal)/Cideal.
www.ceramics.org/ACT Inkjet Printed Metal-Insulator-Metal Capacitors
Fig. 8. Tunability of the fully inkjet-printed metal-insulator-
metal varactors at f = 0.5 GHz.
calculated by the applied bias voltage U with the thick-
ness of the dielectric layer hBST according to
U
E ¼
2hBST
The measurements were carried out with
Umax = 50 V for the samples with hBST = 2.9 lm and
Umax = 100 V for the samples with higher thickness of
the dielectric layer. All three sample types show a similar
behavior with a very high linearity. At E = 5 V/lm, the
measured tunability values are between s = 14.4 % and
16.4 %. Table III summarizes the properties of the var-
actors at f = 0.5 GHz. For E = 9 V/lm, a tunability up
to s = 30.0% was measured.
A fully printed loaded-line phase shifter for an oper-
ation in the S-Band (2–4 GHz) was designed with the
printed varactors. Figure 9 shows the topography and a
microscopic image of the printed phase shifter. The
device consists of a slot-line waveguide, which is loaded
periodically by seven pairs of varactors with a spacing of
5.1 mm. The working principle of the phase shifter is as
follows: A signal travelling through one of the wave-
guides is affected by the impedance of the transmission
line. A tuning of the varactors can be used to change the
propagation constant of the waveguide, which results in
a phase shift of the transmitted signal.
The performance of the device is determined by the
resistance and inductance of the transmission lines as
Table III. Properties of the Fully Inkjet-Printed Metal-Insulator-Metal Varactors at f = 0.5 GHz
hBST/lm
1 layer of BST–ZnO–B2O3 2.9  0.1
2 layers of BST–ZnO–B2O3 5.6  0.1
3 layers of BST–ZnO–B2O3 9.0  0.3
*
E = 5 V/lm.
E171
well as the capacitance, quality factor, and tunability of
the varactors. Tuning of the varactors is performed by
applying a bias voltage U between the two electrodes.
The phase shift Δu is defined by the difference of the
phase of the transmitted signal ∠S21 in the tuned and
untuned state:
Du ¼ \S21 ðU Þ  \S21 ð0Þ ð8Þ
To express the quality of a phase shifter, the figure
of merit FoM is defined as the ratio of the achieved
phase shift Δumax to the maximal insertion loss ILmax at
a certain frequency:
Dumax
FoM ¼ ð9Þ
ILmax
The fully printed phase shifter was prepared in the
same way as the printed varactors and was also sintered
for 1 h at 850°C. To minimize the resistance of the
ð7Þ transmission lines, the electrodes were printed with a
thickness of hAg = 4.4 lm (8 layers of silver). Based on
the results reported above, the thickness of the dielectric
layer was chosen to be hBST = 11 lm to achieve a capac-
itance value of about 1.2 pF in the untuned state for
each pair of varactors.
Figure 10 shows the phase shift (a) and the figure of
merit (b) of the fully inkjet-printed phase shifter. In the
frequency range of f = 2.7–3.4 GHz, the phase shifter
reaches a maximal phase shift of Du = 90–180°, while
the figure of merit is between FoM = 19°/dB and 21°/
dB. The phase shift further increases up to f = 3.7 GHz.
However, due to an increase of the insertion loss, the
FoM strongly decreases above 3.4 GHz. This is due to
the Bragg frequency of the phase shifter, which acts as a
cut-off frequency. It is determined by the inductance
length of the waveguides and the capacitance of the var-
actors per unit cell.
Altogether, the phase shifter successfully demon-
strates the capability of the inkjet printing process for
the preparation of fully printed tunable microwave
devices. Compared to already published screen-printed
devices, the phase shifter shows a comparable figure of
merit (FoM = 6.3–21°/dB, f = 2.5–3.0 GHz15–18). The
achieved phase shift, however, is considerably larger than
Cmeas/pF Q s/%*
4.1  0.6 35.5  0.9 15.9  0.9
2.5  0.2 36.8  0.5 16.4  0.9
1.5  0.1 38.6  0.8 14.4  0.7
E172 International Journal of Applied Ceramic Technology—Friederich, et al. Vol. 12, No. S1, 2015

Fig. 9. Topography and microscopic image of the fully inkjet-printed phase shifter.

(a) (b)

Fig. 10. Phase shift (a) and figure of merit (b) of the fully inkjet-printed phase shifter for different bias voltages. The highlighted frequency
range marks the operating interval where a maximal phase shift between 90° and 180° is reached.

in the reported publications (Du = 4.5–63°15–18). This
is believed to be due to the lower film thickness of the
inkjet-printed layers, which allows a larger tuning of the
varactors at similar biasing voltages.
Conclusions
A Ba0.6Sr0.4TiO3–ZnO–B2O3 composite ink was
prepared and used for the manufacturing of fully inkjet-
printed metal-insulator-metal varactors. Sintering at
850°C leads to a highly porous, fine grained dielectric
film with a permittivity of er = 129 and a dielectric loss
of tan d = 0.043 at f = 3 GHz. The printed varactors
show a capacitance which is influenced by resonance
effects for frequencies above 1 GHz due to the large
inductance of the printed electrodes. The 3D electro-
magnetic simulation of the varactors shows a reasonable
accordance of the calculated capacitances with the mea-
sured ones (7–20% deviation). The simulation further
reveals the strong influence of the fringing field effect on
the capacitance of the printed structures. Depending on
the thickness of the dielectric layer, the effect leads to
capacitance values that are between 16% and 28%
higher than expected by using the formula of an ideal
parallel-plate capacitor. The printed varactors reach tuna-
bilities up to 30% by applying a tuning field of
E = 9 V/lm. To demonstrate the capability of the ink-
jet printing process for tunable microwave devices, a
fully inkjet-printed phase shifter was developed. It is
based on seven pairs of the printed varactors and reaches
a phase shift of Du = 90–180° with a figure of merit
FoM = 19–21°/dB in the frequency range of f = 2.7–
3.4 GHz.
www.ceramics.org/ACT Inkjet Printed Metal-Insulator-Metal Capacitors E173

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