3D Printing Materials for the Superstrate of a Resonant-Cavity Antenna

The 3D-printing of dielectric superstrates of Resonant Cavity Antennas has been demonstrating its advantages in fast prototyping and flexibility in the realization of customized layouts. A suitable combination of thickness, side extension and permittivity of the superstrate can enhance the antenna gain of the primary source over a broad frequency interval. With non-periodic and perforated layouts, instead, the radiative properties can be improved. In this work, the dielectric permittivity of different printing material is measured with a Vector Network Analyzer. The tested materials are all polymeric filaments with low dielectric permittivity, for fabrication with Fusion Deposition Modelling technique, and their application in the realization of an RCA superstrate is presented.