A Gravity-Triggered Liquid Metal Patch Antenna with Reconfigurable Frequency

• Main Authors: Peng Qin, Guan-Long Huang, Jia-Jun Liang, Qian-Yu Wang, Jun-Heng Fu, Xi-Yu Zhu, Tian-Ying Liu, Lin Gui, Jing Liu, Zhong-Shan Deng
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2021-06-01
• Series: Micromachines
• Subjects: EGaIn; frequency reconfigurable; gravity field; liquid metal; patch antenna; stereolithography
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2072-666X/12/6/701

In this paper, a gravity-triggered liquid metal microstrip patch antenna with reconfigurable frequency is proposed with experimental verification. In this work, the substrate of the antenna is quickly obtained through three-dimensional (3D) printing technology. Non-toxic EGaIn alloy is filled into the resin substrate as a radiation patch, and the NaOH solution is used to remove the oxide film of EGaIn. In this configuration, the liquid metal inside the antenna can be flexibly flowed and deformed with different rotation angles due to the gravity to realize different working states. To validate the conception, the reflection coefficients and radiation patterns of the prototyped antenna are then measured, from which it can be observed that the measured results closely follow the simulations. The antenna can obtain a wide operating bandwidth of 3.69–4.95 GHz, which coverage over a range of frequencies suitable for various channels of the 5th generation (5G) mobile networks. The principle of gravitational driving can be applied to the design of reconfigurable antennas for other types of liquid metals.