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1. 2D titanium carbide (MXene) for wireless communication

   https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aau0920  

   Sarycheva, Asia; Polemi, Alessia; Liu, Yuqiao; Dandekar, Kapil; Anasori, Babak; Gogotsi, Yury (September 2018, Science Advances)

   null (Ed.)

   With the development of the Internet of Things (IoT), the demand for thin and wearable electronic devices is growing quickly. The essential part of the IoT is communication between devices, which requires radio-frequency (RF) antennas. Metals are widely used for antennas; however, their bulkiness limits the fabrication of thin, lightweight, and flexible antennas. Recently, nanomaterials such as graphene, carbon nanotubes, and conductive polymers came into play. However, poor conductivity limits their use. We show RF devices for wireless communication based on metallic two-dimensional (2D) titanium carbide (MXene) prepared by a single-step spray coating. We fabricated a ~100-nm-thick translucent MXene antenna with a reflection coefficient of less than −10 dB. By increasing the antenna thickness to 8 μm, we achieved a reflection coefficient of −65 dB. We also fabricated a 1-μm-thick MXene RF identification device tag reaching a reading distance of 8 m at 860 MHz. Our finding shows that 2D titanium carbide MXene operates below the skin depth of copper or other metals as well as offers an opportunity to produce transparent antennas. Being the most conductive, as well as water-dispersible, among solution-processed 2D materials, MXenes open new avenues for manufacturing various classes of RF and other portable, flexible, and wearable electronic devices. 

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2. Wideband Patch Antenna with Modified L-Probe Feeding for mmWave 5G Mobile Applications

   https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics13163119  

   Lee, Woncheol; Won, Hoyun; Hong, Yang-Ki; Choi, Minyeong; An, Sung-Yong (August 2024, Electronics)

   This paper presents a wideband low-profile dual-polarized patch antenna with helical-shaped L-probe feeding (HLF) for mmWave 5G mobile device applications. Parametric studies on the HLF structure are performed to identify the optimal specifications. As a result, the optimized antenna achieves a wide bandwidth of 5.4 GHz (24.2–29.6 GHz), good isolation > 18 dB between ports, and 5.1 dBi of good peak realized gain, which is experimentally verified with a 10× upscaled antenna. In addition, various one × four phased arrays with different port configurations and beamform capabilities are designed and simulated for the peak realized gain. The designed antenna array shows a high peak realized gain of 10 dBi, high isolation of 15 dB between the ports, and a small substrate thickness of 0.048λ0 (λ0 is the wavelength of 24.25 GHz). Compared to the state-of-the-art antennas, the designed dual-polarized antenna can operate in the frequency ranges of 24.25–29.6 GHz, including n257, n258, and n261 of the 5G new radio frequency range 2. 

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3. A Direct-Conversion Digital Beamforming Array Receiver with 800 MHz Channel Bandwidth at 28 GHz using Xilinx RF SoC

   Sravan Pulipati, Viduneth Ariyarathna (November 2019, 2019 IEEE International Conference on Microwaves, Antennas, Communications and Electronic Systems (COMCAS))

   null (Ed.)

   This paper discusses early results associated with a fully-digital direct-conversion array receiver at 28 GHz. The proposed receiver makes use of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) electronics, including the receiver chain. The design consists of a custom 28 GHz patch antenna sub-array providing gain in the elevation plane, with azimuthal plane beamforming provided by real-time digital signal processing (DSP) algorithms running on a Xilinx Radio Frequency System on Chip (RF SoC). The proposed array receiver employs element-wise fully-digital array processing that supports ADC sample rates up to 2 GS/second and up to 1 GHz of operating bandwidth per antenna. The RF mixed-signal data conversion circuits and DSP algorithms operate on a single-chip RFSoC solution installed on the Xilinx ZCU1275 prototyping platform. 

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4. Design of a Compact 24 GHz Antenna Array for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) Communication

   https://doi.org/10.1109/AP-S/USNC-URSI47032.2022.9886200  

   Kakaraparty, Karthik; Roy, Sunanda; Mahbub, Ifana (September 2022, 2022 IEEE International Symposium on Antennas and Propagation and USNC-URSI Radio Science Meeting (AP-S/URSI))

   This paper presents the design of a compact 4 × 4 antenna array suitable for unmanned aerial vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication applications. The proposed antenna array can offer a narrow beamwidth, high gain, wide beam steering capability and is highly compact. The substrate material used is Rogers 5880 with a thickness of 0.2 mm, and copper is used for the patch and ground material with 0.14 mm thickness. The di-electric constant and the tangent loss of the Rogers substrate are 2.2 and 0.0004, respectively. 45° phase shifters are incorporated in the feeding paths to facilitate the beamsteering. The dimensions of the proposed antenna array are 32 × 32 × 0.48 mm 3 . The designed antenna array has the resonating frequency at 24 GHz and has a bandwidth of 0.83 GHz (3.5% fractional bandwidth). The measured far field gain of the designed antenna array is 16.7 dBi. The beamwidth derived from the array’s far-field radiation pattern is 14.6°, and the maximum beam steering range of the array is 102° along the θ axis. 

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5. A Novel Low Loss 3D System-in-Package Approach for 60GHz Antenna on Chip Applications

   Adamshick, Stephen; Govindarajulu, Sandhiya; Alwan, Elias. (August 2020, 2020 IEEE 63rd International Midwest Symposium on Circuits and Systems (MWSCAS))

   null (Ed.)

   This paper presents a novel low loss 3D system in package (SiP) approach for achieving antenna-on-chip integration. Specifically, this design uses 3D through silicon via (TSV) technology to achieve a vertical SiP phased array radio. The fully integrated package consists of a digital baseband chip, a radio frequency integrated circuit (RFIC), and lastly a microstrip patch phased array. The 3D TSVs achieve an insertion loss of less than 0.4 dB/pair at millimeter-wave frequencies. The differential fed microstrip patch array achieves a return loss of 40 dB at a 60 GHz center frequency with 4 GHz instantaneous bandwidth. The antenna array achieves an E and H plane realized gain of 17.1 dBi for a 4×4 element design. In addition, this design approach enables individual fabrication of each element to maximize yield with low cost assembly using ball grid array (BGA) technology. Lastly, this design does not require special design rules that comprise either transistor or antenna performance as compared to other methods outlined in antenna on chip design. 

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