3D printed antennas: Metalized plastic

This thesis introduces the use of 3D printed plastic structures for the fabrication of antenna structures. Use of 3D printing technology allows for a simple fabrication technique that is faster and low cost compared with traditional microfabrication approaches. Two Vivaldi antenna designs are studied first: i) a simple notch antenna with a radiating slot line cavity and ii) a corrugated Vivaldi with a partially covered cavity. The corrugations help increase the bandwidth and gain of the Vivaldi antenna. The antennas show an extremely wide bandwidth of approximately 13 GHz and have a gain maximum of approximately 12dB. Further modifications were made by adding bilateral pieces and dielectric focal lens at the radiating end. A larger bandwidth and higher gain was attained. The dielectric guiding structure in the aperture helps to further improve the gain both at the lower frequency and higher frequency regions. The integration of dielectrics in the antenna design is readily achieved using 3D printing. Apart from the above Vivaldi antenna designs, three other antenna designs were also studied. This includes a dielectric loaded monopole antenna, a patch antenna and a reconfigurable Lego-like antenna. Complex 3D antenna structures and novel antenna designs that use a combination of dielectric and metal regions are studied and these structures can readily be fabricated using 3D printing.