Taha A Elwi et al 2010 Nanotechnology 21 045301 doi:10.

1088/0957-4484/21/4/045301

Multi-walled carbon nanotube-based RF

antennas
Taha A Elwi1 , Hussain M Al-Rizzo1 , Daniel G Rucker1 , Enkeleda Dervishi2,3 , Zhongrui Li2,3 and Alexandru S Biris 2,3
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Abstract

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A novel application that utilizes conductive patches composed of purified multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs)
embedded in a sodium cholate composite thin film to create microstrip antennas operating in the microwave
frequency regime is proposed. The MWCNTs are suspended in an adhesive solvent to form a conductive ink that is
printed on flexible polymer substrates. The DC conductivity of the printed patches was measured by the four probe
technique and the complex relative permittivity was measured by an Agilent E5071B probe. The commercial software
package, CST Microwave Studio (MWS), was used to simulate the proposed antennas based on the measured
constitutive parameters. An excellent agreement of less than 0.2% difference in resonant frequency is shown.
Simulated and measured results were also compared against identical microstrip antennas that utilize copper
conducting patches. The proposed MWCNT-based antennas demonstrate a 5.6% to 2.2% increase in bandwidth,
with respect to their corresponding copper-based prototypes, without significant degradation in gain and/or far-field
radiation patterns.

PACS

61.46.Fg Nanotubes
81.16.Rf Nanoscale pattern formation
84.40.Ba Antennas: theory, components and accessories
68.37.Lp Transmission electron microscopy (TEM)