Microwave antennas and heterogeneous substrates using nanomaterial fabrication techniques (Invited paper for ICEA11)

By exploiting the enhanced physical properties of nanomaterials and the advancement in nanotechnology, alternative methods of fabricating microwave antennas can be conceived. This paper will discuss the potential manufacturing advantages as well as different fabrication methods. By controlling the location of metallic and dielectric particles, integrated antennas and substrates can be made in one process. Electromagnetic advantages result from being able to add inclusions with different electrical properties into the host substrate and thereby create a new effective permittivity and permeability. This paper will review and analyse methods for calculating these effective properties.