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3D printing of functional metal and dielectric composite meta‐atoms

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journal contribution
posted on 2022-01-12, 16:52 authored by Christopher John Stevens, Ioannis Spanos, Andrea Vallechi, Jack McGhee, William WhittowWilliam Whittow
In this report, a novel fabrication method, based on casting Field's metal inside dielectric molds made via fused deposition modeling, is presented. Fused deposition modeling (FDM) has become one of the most common rapid prototyping methods. Whilst it generally produces good quality mechanical structures in thermoplastics, few reliable methods have been demonstrated that produce good quality 3D electrically conductive structures. By using Field's metal to transform dielectric molds into conductive structures, nearly any continuous metal geometry buried within the polymer can be created, allowing for the realization of complex 3D architectures. A wide range of thermoplastic materials used in fused deposition modeling have been investigated, to identify the best candidates in terms of processing temperature, relative permittivity, and loss tangent. Experimental measurements and X-ray computer tomography scans are used to determine the quality of structures fabricated using this method. Based on these findings, functional metamaterials devices operating at 600–700 MHz with high Q-factors have been produced. This method shows potential to be incorporated into standard FDM setups and could be utilized for the fabrication of curved and 3D geometries.

Funding

SYnthesizing 3D METAmaterials for RF, microwave and THz applications (SYMETA)

Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council

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History

School

  • Mechanical, Electrical and Manufacturing Engineering

Published in

Small

Volume

18

Issue

10

Publisher

Wiley

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Rights holder

© The Authors

Publisher statement

This is an Open Access Article. It is published by Wiley under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence (CC BY 4.0). Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Publication date

2022-01-05

Copyright date

2022

ISSN

1613-6810

eISSN

1613-6829

Language

  • en

Depositor

Prof Will Whittow. Deposit date: 11 January 2022

Article number

2105368

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