A D-Band 3D-Printed Antenna

This article reports the design and fabrication of a novel all-metal antenna operating in the millimeter-wave band. Based on the resonant cavity antenna (RCA) concept, the principle of antenna operation is explained, and parametric studies of several key design parameters are provided. A novel impedance matching technique is introduced to broaden the antenna return loss bandwidth. Two gain enhancement methods have been employed to achieve a more directive beam with reduced side lobes and back lobes. The D-band antenna prototypes are produced using i) all-metal printing without any postprocessing; ii) dielectric printing with copper metallization applied later. Comparisons of the simulated and measured results amongst the antennas fabricated using the two additive manufacturing techniques are made. Measurement results of the two antenna prototypes show that the proposed design can achieve a 14.2% bandwidth with a maximum gain of 15.5 dBi at 135 GHz. The present work is the first D-band resonant cavity antenna fabricated using two different 3D printing methods.

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