Impact of Surface Roughness on 3D Printed

SLS Horn Antennas

K. Lomakin, T. Pavlenko, M. Sippel, G. Gold,
K. Helmreich
Institute of Microwaves and Photonics
Friedrich-Alexander University
Erlangen-Nuremberg
Erlangen, Germany
Email: konstantin.lomakin@fau.de
M. Ankenbrand, N. Urban, J. Franke
Institute for Factory Automation and Production Systems
Friedrich-Alexander University
Erlangen-Nuremberg
Erlangen, Germany
Email: markus.ankenbrand@faps.fau.de

Abstract—This work compares a pyramid horn antenna

printed by selective laser sintering (SLS) process from
stainless steel powder with a commercially available cast
metal horn. Although exhibiting significant surface rough-
ness and lower conductivity, the printed specimen shows
almost identical performance as compared to the cast metal
reference. The measurement results are analyzed and the
impact of surface roughness is attributed to physical relations
which can be represented by using an effective, frequency
dependent conductivity.

I. I NTRODUCTION Reference Antenna SLS-Printed Antenna

Additive manufacturing (AM) including the use of vari-
Fig. 1. Fabricated specimens
ous 3D printing systems increases the degree of freedom in
design and thus allows for complex and three dimensional
structures built from a variety of different materials [1].
Especially in antenna applications, where geometry is
crucial for the beam characteristics, AM unleashes vast
potential and is thus considered by several scientific and
even commercial applications. Horn antennas, as typical
three dimensional antenna geometries, were already in-
vestigated in the context of 3D printing with different
approaches. Fused deposition modeling (FDM) may be Reference Antenna SLS-Printed Antenna
used to provide a dielectric body that has to be metalized
Fig. 2. Microscope close-up of specimens’ surface structures
by either electroless plating [2] or electroplating [3]. Also,
latter step can be achieved by conductive ink which is
applied by a paint brush as shown in [4] or by splitting II. FABRICATED H ORN A NTENNA
the workpiece. However, splitting the horn may introduce
leaky current in the slot between peaces which affects In this work, a commercially available K-band ref-
antenna performance. Hence, the metalization remains a erence horn antenna was replicated by an SLS printing
bottleneck of this approach. system from stainless steel as shown in figure 1. While
In this context, selective laser sinterng (SLS) allows for being mechanically robust and comparable in weight, the
the direct fabrication of metal parts by layer-wise melting printed specimen reveals a much rougher surface than the
of metal powder, thus, featuring even more geometrical cast metal reference. Therefore, figure 2 shows a close-up
design flexibility as FDM, since requiring less support of the both surfaces taken by a microscope. A measure-
structures. Yet, besides the limitation to one single material ment of root-mean-square (RMS) surface roughness Rq
per print, the surface quality also suffers of high roughness with an optical scanning system is summarized in table I.
on SLS printed specimens. Although the surface quality With an Rq of 9.8 μm, the SLS-specimen has significantly
is a critical aspect for signal integrity on interconnects, increased surface roughness than the cast metal reference
its impact on horn antenna gain was shown to stay exhibiting only 1.6 μm.
within a considerably small range of about 1 dBi even at
frequencies above 60 GHz [5]. This work focuses on SLS
III. R ESULTS OF E LECTRICAL M EASUREMENTS
printed pyramid horn antennas for the K-band frequency
range and yields a model based estimation describing the A qualitative comparison of the DC-conductivity
measured impact of surface roughness on the attenuation (bulk-conductivity σ0 ) of both samples, where ohmic
of transmitted signals. resistance is acquired over two corners as shown in
 TABLE I
PARAMETERS OF THE EVALUATED ANTENNAS

Reference SLS-Printed −30

Length 32 mm 32 mm
Weight 33 g 44 g

|S21 | in dB
Rq 1.6 μm 9.8 μm
Measured Current 504 mA 504 mA −32
Measured Voltage 57 mV 106 mV

Reference
−34 SLS-Printed

−36
14 16 18 20 22 24
Frequency in GHz

Fig. 5. Transmission coefficients |S21 | of the specimen over 1.2 m

increased ripple but still stays in the same order of

magnitude as the reference.

Figure 5 shows the measured transmission coefficient |S21 |

Fig. 3. Setup for qualitative comparison of bulk conductivity
figure 3 by measuring current and voltage is summarized
in table I. It indicates that the SLS printed sample is
less conductive than cast metal. While the cross section
thickness of the printed specimen is approximately twice
bigger than the reference one, the measured voltage is also
about two times the reference measurement at the same
current, showing significantly lower conductivity of the
SLS printed material. Both these indications theoretically
implicate an impact on the transmission performance and
thus the antenna’s gain and should be reflected in the
electrical measurements.
Figure 4 shows the measured reflection coefficient
of both samples when operated versus a reference horn
antenna. Therein, the printed specimen exhibits slightly
over a distance of 1.2 m. Contrary to the expectations,
there is no significant decrease in performance of the
printed antenna as compared to the reference. Although
there are regions where the reference antenna performs
better than the printed one and vice versa, the absolute
deviation stays within a margin of approximately 0.6 dB
above the cutoff frequency.
Comparable results are acquired from the beam
pattern measurement in an anechoic chamber over a
distance of approximately 2.84 m. Figures 6 and 7 show
both antennas’ beam characteristics at 16 GHz over
azimuth and elevation angle. At this frequency, the
reference horn reveals about 1 dB more gain as compared
to the printed specimen although the HPBW of latter one
is less.
However, at 17 GHz, both samples show almost exactly

0 −40

−45
|S21 | in dB
|S11 | in dB

-10 −50

Reference Reference
−55
SLS-Printed SLS-Printed
-20
−60

−65
-30
14 16 18 20 22 24 −40 −20 0 20 40
Frequency in GHz Azimuth angle in degrees

Fig. 4. Reflection |S11 | coefficient of measured antennas Fig. 6. Azimuth beam characteristic of the specimen at 16 GHz
 −40
−40

−45
−45
|S21 | in dB

|S21 | in dB
−50
−50
Reference Reference
−55 SLS-Printed SLS-Printed
−55
−60

−80 −60 −40 −20 0 20 40 60 80 −80 −60 −40 −20 0 20 40 60 80

Azimuth angle in degrees Azimuth angle in degrees

Fig. 7. Elevation beam characteristic of the specimen at 16 GHz Fig. 9. Elevation beam characteristic of the specimen at 17 GHz

−40 Reference Azimuth

45 Reference Elevation
SLS-Printed Azimuth
SLS-Printed Elevation
|S21 | in dB

−50
HPBW in

40
Reference
SLS-Printed
35
−60

30
−40 −20 0 20 40 14 15 16 17 18
Azimuth angle in degrees Frequency in GHz

Fig. 8. Azimuth beam characteristic of the specimen at 17 GHz Fig. 10. HPBW of the elevation pattern

the same behavior among the main lobe as shown in

there is a significant difference in terms of surface rough-
figures 8 and 9. Finally, figure 10 shows the behavior
ness and conductivity, the samples do not differ as signif-
of the half power beam width HPBW over frequency.
icantly in the measured gain.
The difference between both horns most probably results
The attenuation due to rough surfaces can be modeled
from geometry deviations in the printed specimen and
by an ideally smooth surface with an effective, frequency
noise within the measurement. While the transition from
dependent conductivity as described in [6]–[8]. Following
waveguide section to pyramid horn is smooth in case
the proposed approach, we obtain different trends of
of the reference antenna, in the 3D printed specimen
effective conductivities over frequency depending on Rq
it is implemented as an edge, since latter is based on
and σ0 . Figure 11 shows three calculated cases where the
a simplified CAD model. When the HPBW of both
roughness varies between 1.6 μm (reference antenna) and
samples is quite identical - as it is at 16 GHz - the
9.8 μm (SLS-printed sample) with the estimated bulk con-
gain shows a difference of about 1 dB (see figures 6
ductivities of cast metal (10 MS/m) and printed stainless
and 7). At the same time, the lower HPBW of the
steel (approximated as 1.8 MS/m). Although not knowing
printed antenna at 17 GHz enables for more gain due
the exact values of σ0 for the materials deployed in
to focusing - thus reaching the same level as the reference.
this work, the different trends reveal, that knowing the
true Rq is more important in the considered frequency
range since both - high and low - bulk conductivities
IV. I MPACT OF S URFACE ROUGHNESS ON A NTENNA
yield approximately the same effective conductivity (as
P ROPERTIES
compared to the low Rq -curve) when Rq is high.
The measurements indicate, that the SLS-printed spec- Intuitively, these variations in effective conductivity (vary-
imen exhibits more losses due to the measured bulk ing about a factor of 16...20!) would lead to rather
conductivity and surface quality (Rq ). However, although high impact on attenuation and thus - disagree with the
 Effective conductivity σef f in MS/m the printed specimen exhibits significantly more surface
10 roughness and less bulk conductivity at the same time,
σ0 = 10 MS/m Rq = 1.6 μm
σ0 = 10 MS/m Rq = 9.8 μm the impact of these two factors reveals only a variation of
8 about 0.5 dB in gain. The low deviation is explained by
σ0 = 1.8 MS/m Rq = 9.8 μm
applying a physical model for surface roughness based on
6 Maxwell’s equations and approximating the antenna by a
rectangular waveguide.
4 ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The reported results were obtained in the course of
2 the project HF-Druck (19253 N/1), funded by the BMWi
/ AiF. The authors would especially like to thank the
0 research association 3-D MID e.V. for supporting this
project.
0 5 10 15 20
Frequency in GHz
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|S21 | in dB

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−2
−3
14 16
Fig. 12. Insertion loss |S21 | over f for different effective conductivities
measurements. However, approximating the antenna by a
rectangular waveguide (RWG) with a width of 10.7 mm,
a length of 32 mm and the effective conductivities ob-
tained from figure 11, the S-Parameters of such an ideally
matched guide can be obtained by
 
|S21 | = 20 log10 e−αl (1)
where α represents the attenuation constant obtained from
[9] and l is the waveguide’s length. Notice, that for the
dimensional relations in this comparison, the impact of
surface roughness on the phase coefficient has not been
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Figure 12 shows the calculated transmission coefficient
|S21 | of the matched waveguide for the three considered
effective conductivity trends. Although σef f was varying
by a factor of about 16...20, the absolute attenuation yields
only a range of less than 0.5 dB, which is approximately
the same as the variation in gain gathered from the beam
characteristics.
V. C ONCLUSION
In this work, an SLS-printed pyramid horn antenna
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