Daniel S Engstrom
Loughborough University, UK
Title: Additive manufacturing of metal-ceramic metamaterials for RF communications
Biography
Biography: Daniel S Engstrom
Abstract
Metamaterials is a class of engineered materials with properties not found in nature. For Radio frequency (RF) communicatons these materials are envisaged to be used for planar antennas and RF devices where advantages are obtained by engineering the permitivity and permeability of the composite structure. Metamaterials for RF communications include those comprising of sub-wavelength highly ordered arrays of conductive materials embedded in a dielectric host material. Metals are the obvious choice for the conductive part and ceramics offer a high permitivity and low loss dielectric host medium. Additive manufacturing (AM) enables remarkable flexibility in the level of geometric complexity and lends itself well to the manufacturing of 3D metamaterials. Although AM of metals is well established, AM of combined metal-ceramic is still only at the research stage. Especially the high sintering temperatures required for ceramic manufacturing makes the process non-compatible with metals. In this project we use a dispensing system and localized laser processing to manufacture metamaterials. The project is part the EPSRC Grand Challenge; SYMETA – SYnthesizing 3D METAmaterials for RF, microwave and THz applications (EP/N010493/1).