Flexible and Deformable Monopole Antenna Based on Silver Nanoparticles for Wearable Electronics

摘要

We demonstrated a flexible and deformable monopole antenna based on silver nanoparticles and the polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) flexible substrate (with the thickness of 1 mm) for wireless wearable communications applications. The radiating element and ground plane of the antenna with highly electric conductivity (with sheet resistance of similar to 10 Omega/sq) and stretchability consists of silver nanoparticles. The morphologies, electrical and mechanical properties of the radiating element were investigated. In addition, the modeling, fabrication procedure, radiating properties of the flexible and deformable antenna worked at 2.45 GHz were systematically demonstrated. The reflection coefficient, VSWR and the -10 dB bandwidth is similar to-25.9 dB, 1.73 and similar to 230 MHz respectively, which agreed well with the simulation results. Furthermore, the results indicate that the realized conformal monopole antenna could have promising applications in flexible and reversibly deformable antennas for wearable wireless communications systems.