Improvement of 60 GHz Transparent Patch Antenna Array Performance Through Specific Double-Sided Micrometric Mesh Metal Technology

Abstract

This paper presents the performance of optically transparent <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$4 \times 2$ </tex-math></inline-formula> microstrip patch antenna arrays operating at 60 GHz and made from double-sided micrometric mesh metal layers. A high level of optical transparency (higher than 80%) over the entire visible light spectrum coupled with a sheet resistance lower than 0.5 <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\Omega $ </tex-math></inline-formula> /sq of the mesh metal films are achieved. Microwave performance of the transparent antenna arrays has been performed from two different mesh ground plane patterns and compared with those of an opaque antenna array made of double-sided continuous metal films. A gain value equal to 13.6 dBi at 58.0 GHz has been recorded, against 15.6 dBi at 59.7 GHz for the opaque antenna array. The influence of the mesh structure and mesh parameters of the ground plane is investigated and discussed.