2017 11th European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EUCAP)
1
Low Cost Instantly Printed Silver Nano Ink Flexible
Dual-Band Antenna onto Paper Substrate
H. A. Elmobarak, S.K.A Rahim, M. Himdi, X. Castel and T.A.Rahman
1
Wireless Communication Centre (WCC), Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, UTM Skudai,
81310, Johor, Malaysia. aeehusameldin2@live.utm.my, sharulkamal@fke.utm.my, tharek@fke.utm.my
2
Institut d’Electronique et de Télécommunications de Rennes (IETR UMR 6164)/IUT de Saint-Brieuc/Université de Rennes 1,
18 rue Henri Wallon 22004 Saint-Brieuc & 263 av. Gal Leclerc, 35042 Rennes, France. mohamed.hindi@univ-rennes1.fr
Abstract— An instant and low cost inkjet-printed multiband
Sierpinski fractal antenna onto a flexible paper substrate using
chemically sintered silver nanoparticles ink is investigated in
the present study. The printed layer is highly conductive, a few
seconds after printing at room temperature, and without the
need of special equipment or processes (a conventional inkjet
printer is used to elaborate the antenna accurately. The antenna
operates effectively in the 1.5-2.7 GHz and 5.1-11 GHz bands. It
exhibits highly flexible mechanical properties enable it to be
bent without sacrificing its performance. These promising
results demonstrate the potential of utilizing instant printing
technology for instantly and efficiently integrating antennas
with flexible electronics and systems for the future wireless
networks.
Index Terms— Flexible antenna, Dual - band antenna, Silver
nanopractices ink.
I. INTRODUCTION
In recent years, researchers have investigated a variety of
inject printing technologies for realizing effective low cost
and environmentally - friendly printed flexible antennas. The
high demand for flexible microelectronics, wearable devices
and portable electronic gadgets has been identified as a
motivational factor for investigating this technology.
Moreover, wireless communication between entities such as
on body wearable gadgets will be seamless and ubiquitous in
5G networks for internet of things (IOT), device to device
communication (D2D) and/or machine to machine
communication (M2M) applications. Furthermore, some of
them require instant and fast fabricated wireless system and
repeated fabrication while maintaining a lower cost. Thus the
demand for low cost instant printed flexible antennas and
flexible passive components will be increased exponentially
every single year.
Several inject printed technologies have been proposed [1-
4] recently using silver nanoparticles particles ink based onto
different flexible substrate such as kapton polyimide [5],
papers [6] and polyethylene terephthalate PET [7]. However,
most of the reported inkjet printing methods are based on
thermal sintering, which require further long process long
time for ink sintering to achieve the highest conductivity
However, most of the reported inkjet printing methods are
based on thermal sintering, which require further long
process for ink sintering to achieve the highest conductivity.
Moreover, the main bottleneck in inkjet-printed features on
flexible (polymeric) substrates is the low softening point (Tg)
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of the substrate, which limits the processing temperature. The
Tg of commonly used polymeric substrates, like PET or
polycarbonate (PC), is lower than150 °C. Typically, colloidal
suspensions of conductive materials need a sintering
temperature higher than 200 °C, which is hence not
compatible with most polymeric substrates [8].
In this paper, an instant and low cost inkjet printing
technology is investigated to effectively print a dual band
Sierpinski fractal antenna onto paper substrate. The printed
traces are sintered instantly and the highest conductivity
value achieved within few seconds without any further
sintering process. The antenna elements are printed precisely
using an ordinary inkjet printer. The overall antenna
performance and the bending effect are assessed through
numerical simulations and measurements showing promising
results.
II. ANTENNA DESIGN
A coplanar waveguide (CPW) fed Sierpinski dual band
antenna has been designed to operate in the bands from
1.5 GHz to 2.7 GHz and from 5.1 GHz to 11 GHz with an
impedance bandwidth |S11| lower than -10 dB. Numerical
simulations have been performed using the commercial CST
Microwave Studio®. The optimized parameters and the
schematic view of the proposed antenna are listed and shown
in Table I and Fig.1, respectively. The antenna has been
designed with a CPW structure and a Sierpinski triangle
shape radiating element printed onto a thin sheet of paper.
The tapered upper corner edges of the CPW ground planes
have been optimized to yield smooth and continued
characteristic impedance transition between the feeding port
and the free space. Consequently, the antenna gains a stable
broadband performance. In contrast, the two slots between
the CPW ground planes and the feeding line indicated by G
represents the key factor for the antenna radiation
performance.
III. PRINTING AND FABRICATION PROCESS
A chemical sintering based conductive silver nanoparticles
ink supplied by AgIc Co (Japan) has been used. Chemical
sintering technology has been developed recently to
overcome the time consuming and the damage caused by the
thermal sintering when paper or plastic based substrate is
used, hence making the inkjet printing process more easy and
fast. Moreover, the idea behind the chemical sintering is to
dissolve silver nanoparticles smaller than 0.1 µm in a solvent
consisting of polymer latex and halide emulsion. The highest
 2017 11th European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EUCAP)

conductivity is then achieved several seconds after the fixed on the antenna using a silver loaded epoxy conductive
solution is dried. A 125 µm-thick paper with a dielectric glue to insure a reliable electrical connection.
constant ɛr= 3.7 and a loss tangent tan δ = 0.004 was used as a
substrate.

(a) (b)

Fig. 2. Fabrication process; (a) during printing, (b) The printed antenna

IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Fig. 1. The antenna Layout
Using a PNA-X N5242A network analyzer, the return loss
‫׀‬S11‫ ׀‬of the silver nanoparticles printed antenna has been
TABLE I
measured and compared with the simulation result. As shown
DIMENSIONS OF OPTIMIZED ANTENNA DESIGN in Fig. 3, the measured return loss of the antenna is in good
agreement with the simulated results |S11 |< -10 dB almost
Parameter Value (mm) over the whole operating frequency bands.
L 60
Lf 16
Ls 4.3
L1 6.8
L2 13.6
L3 20.4
L4 27.2
L5 34
L6 40.8
Lg 20
W 45
Wf 2
Ws 5.4
Wp 43.2
Wg 21.2 Fig. 3. Simulated and measured |S11|
G 0.3 The bending tests have been carried out by forming a
C1 20.5 curved surface with different radii using a piece of foam and
C2 4.3 by fixing the antennas on the bent surfaces. The antenna
demonstrates high flexible mechanical characteristics hence
The paper is first resin coated to absorb the ink effectively
it can be easily bend without mechanical damage. The
and prevent smearing. This thin coated layer plays a very
measured ‫׀‬S11‫ ׀‬under bending conditions indicates that the
important role in the chemical sintering of the silver
antenna matching is not significantly affected through almost
nanoparticles ink [9]. A commercial desktop inkjet printer
(MFC J430W) supplied by Brother Co. has been selected the major operating spectrum, as depicted in Fig. 4.
because its nozzle tends to eject higher volume of ink than the Fig. 5 presents the simulated 3D radiation patterns for the
alternative brands. The antenna is printed as in Fig. 2 (a). A proposed antenna at 2 GHz and 6 GHz showing a dipole like
printed single layer exhibits a sheet resistance value equal to shape. Moreover, it has been observed from the simulation
0.2 Ω/sq. A sheet resistance of 0.12 Ω/sq is achieved after results that the radiation pattern becomes more directive after
printing the second layer. Afterwards a SMA connector is 6 GHz.

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REFERENCES
[1] Maza, Armando Rodriguez, et al. "Paper-based inkjet-printed
ultra-wideband fractal antenna," IET microwaves, antennas &
propagation 6.12 (2012): 1366-1373.
[2] Kim, Sangkil, et al. "Inkjet-printed antennas, sensors and circuits on
paper substrate," IET Microwaves, Antennas & Propagation 7.10
(2013): 858-868.
[3] Unnikrishnan, Divya, et al. "CPW-fed inkjet printed UWB antenna on
ABS-PC for integration in molded interconnect devices
technology," IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters 14
(2015): 1125-1128.
[4] Rahman, H. A., et al. "Design of a flexible antenna using printed silver
loaded epoxy on PDMS/plastic substrate for wearable
applications," 2016 10th European Conference on Antennas and
Propagation (EuCAP). IEEE, 2016.
[5] S. Ahmed, F. A. Tahir, Atif Shamim, and H. M. Cheema. “A
Fig. 4. Antenna measured |S11| in flat and bending states with 25 mm and 50 Compact Kapton-Based Inkjet-Printed Multiband Antenna for Flexible
mm bending radii
Wireless Devices,” IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters
14 (2015): 1802-1805.
[6] Li Yang ; Vyas, R. ; Tentzeris, M.M. “ Flexible Low-Cost Paper-Based
Substrates for RFID and WSN applications, ” Antennas and
Propagation Magazine, IEEE Volume:51, Issue:3DOI:
10.1109/MAP.2009.5251188 Publication Year: 2009.
[7] Casula, Giovanni Andrea, Giorgio Montisci, and Giuseppe Mazzarella.
“A wideband PET inkjet-printed antenna for UHF RFID,” IEEE
Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters 12 (2013): 1400-1403.
[8] Van Osch, Thijs HJ, Jolke Perelaer, Antonius WM de Laat, and Ulrich
S. Schubert. “Inkjet printing of narrow conductive tracks on untreated
polymeric substrates,” Advanced Materials 20, no. 2 (2008): 343-345.
[9] Y. Kawahara, S. Hodges, B. S. Cook, C. Zhang, and G. D.Abowd,
“Instant inkjet circuits: lab-based inkjet printing to support rapid
prototyping of UbiComp devices,” in Proceedings of the ACM
International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous
Computing (UbiComp ’13), pp. 363–372, Zurich, Switzerland,
September 2013.

(a) (b)

Fig. 5. Radiation pattern; (a) at 2 GHz, (b) at 6 GHz

It can be seen from the figure that the radiation patterns of

the both Antenna I and II represent a good stability in power
distribution.

CONCLUSION
In this study, an instant inkjet printing technology based on
chemical sintering has been investigated through the
realization of a flexible CPW fed dual - band antenna. A
conventional commercial inkjet printer has been used to
effectively print the radiating elements of the antenna onto a
thin sheet of paper. The antenna operates effectively a few
seconds after it has been printed at room temperature. The
assessment of the bending effect confirms that the antenna
performs well under bending conditions. Consequently, these
promising results demonstrate the potential of this printing
technology for instantly and efficiently integrating antennas
with flexible electronics and systems for the future wireless
networks.

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