Design and Experimental Evaluation of a Proximity Coupled Transparent Patch Antenna for WLAN

Abstract

The design, fabrication, and testing of a compact, low profile transparent micro-strip patch antenna is reported in this paper. The antenna is developed on a soda lime glass substrate with Fluorine doped tin oxide (FTO) (surface resistivity is 15 Ω/sq and optical transmittance of about 80%) as the conductive layers. The radiating patch is excited electromagnetically through proximity coupled feeding technique and the feed is connected through a cold soldering method. The parameters that affect the optical transmittance and conductivity of the antenna are theoretically analyzed using Drude's model. The antenna is designed to operate at 4.9 GHz. The prototype antenna is fabricated and experimental results are presented. The fabricated antenna has a peak realized gain of 5.16 dBi with 800 MHz impedance bandwidth for the reference reflection coefficient of −10 dB. The realized optical transmittance of the device is greater than 60% in the visible region.

KEYWORDS:

• Cold soldering method
• Fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO)
• Proximity coupling
• Soda lime glass
• Transparent antenna
• Transparent conductive oxides

Additional information

Funding

This project is supported by DST SERB under Core Research Grant [grant number EMR/2017/001521].

Notes on contributors

P. Devi Sowjanya

P Devi Sowjanya obtained her BTech degree from electronics and communication engineering from Raghu Engineering College, Visakhapatnam and MTech degree from Andhra University, Visakhapatnam. She is currently a PhD scholar at SSN College of Engineering. Email: [email protected]

M. Gulam Nabi Alsath

M Gulam Nabi Alsath obtained his BE, and ME, degrees from Anna University, Chennai. He received his PhD degree from Anna University for his research work on automotive antennas. He currently serves as an associate professor in the Department of ECE, SSN. His research interests include microwave components and circuits, antenna engineering, signal integrity analysis and solutions to EMI problems. Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]

S. Kirubaveni

S Kirubaveni obtained her BE, and ME, degrees from Anna University, Chennai. She currently serves as an associate professor in the Department of ECE, SSN. She has 7 years of teaching and research experience. Her research interests include MEMS and NEMS device design and VLSI design. She currently involved in the growth of ZnO nanorods for piezoelectric energy harvester and gas sensor applications. She is an active life member in IETE. Email: [email protected]

R. Govindaraj

R Govindaraj is currently working as assistant professor, Department of Physics, SSN College of Engineering. He received his PhD from Anna University in 2018. His research fields focus on semiconductor, nanomaterials, gas sensors, energy harvesting devices, dye-sensitized solar cells, and perovskite solar cells, etc. Email: [email protected]

N. Santhosh

N Santhosh is a PhD student in science and humanities at Anna University, Chennai. He received his master's degree in general chemistry at Thiruvalluvar University, in 2015. He is selected as a senior research fellow in the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR-SRF). His current research focused on new materials to enhance the stability of perovskite solar cells, synthesis of TiO₂ & ZnO nanostructures like nanoparticles, One-dimensional nanostructure, hierarchical microspheres for dye-sensitized solar cell and sensor applications. He also focuses on polymer templated hydroxyapatite materials for bio-ceramics applications. Email: [email protected]