Electrohydrodynamic Inkjet Printed Flexible Ceramic Rectenna for 5.8 GHz ISM Band

This work presents the first reported case of a flexible ceramic rectenna operating in the 5.8 GHz ISM band with electrohydrodynamic inkjet (EHDIJ) printed conductors on Corning 40 micron thick alumina ribbon ceramics (ARC). The viability of using EHDIJ as an additive manufacturing method with resolutions of 5µm for integrating bare die integrated circuits (IC) and RF structures such as antennas for wireless power transfer (WPT) is presented. The functional prototype demonstrates WPT at 5.8 GHz in both its rest and flexed state down to a 35 mm bending radius at distances greater than 200 mm with 1W regulatory compliant RF output power and transmit dipole antenna.