A new paper in the framework of European Projects H2020 NanoSmart and Nanopoly it’s now available to download on IEEE Access website.
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The work, supported by the European Project H2020 ICT-07-201 NANOSMART and the European Project H2020 FETOPEN-01-2018-2019-2020 NANOPOLY presents a tunable 24-GHz antenna array based on a CMOS-compatible 110-nm-thick nanocrystalline graphite grown by plasma-enhanced chemical.
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A new antenna based on two-dimensional (2D) materials…
New communications systems (such as 5G and future 6G) require small and tunable high-frequency devices since their backbone is the Internet-Of-Things (IoT) that is a wireless network interconnecting tiny objects, e.g., sensors, actuators, and detectors.
The antenna is a key component for such applications; therefore, it needs to be small and tunable to allow the accurate interconnection of hundreds, or even thousands, of “things” irrespective of propagation conditions.
The paper explains why antennas based on two-dimensional (2D) materials, like graphene or MXenes, could be ideal candidates thanks to the fact that they are inherently tunable without any additional electronic circuits.
ABSTRACT
110-nm-thick nanocrystalline graphite film grown by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition. The film has a nominal bulk conductivity exceeding 16000 S/m (hence, greater than any graphene monolayer or industrially available graphene multilayer) but still able to show an outstanding modulation of its charge carrier density in the upper microwave spectrum. The manufactured layer was used to design, simulate, fabricate, and test a 24-GHz patch antenna array, with each radiating element having overall dimensions ofjust 0/80/7. The fabricated array exhibits a measured maximum gain of about 3 dBi around 24 GHz
(unbiased state), with a half-power beam width of only 14.5 (suitable in wireless links where a high directivity is envisaged). Spanning the dc bias voltage between -25 V and 25 V at 24 GHz, the gain can be tuned continuously between -1.5 dBi and 4 dBi, whereas the resonance frequency undergoes a maximum shift of 166 MHz. This voltage-dependent tuning of the gain represents a rst step in developing carbon-based applications to control amplitude and phase simultaneously and independently. These results (never reported) demonstrate the big potential of nanocrystalline graphite for high-performance microwave components that are CMOS compatible (a highly desirable characteristic for high fabrication yield and large-scale production), with unprecedented tunability for next-generation high-capacity communications.
Thanks to Martino Aldrigo (main author) and thanks to all RF Microtech team and all partners for their contribution.
You can read or download the full paper on IEEE Access WEBSITE too.