R2R gravure and inkjet printed RF resonant tag

The fabrication of passive circuitry by gravure and inkjet printing is studied. A chipless inductively coupled RF resonant tag is analyzed as a test structure. A floating-bridge layout is employed to provide high yield when fabricated by roll-to-roll (R2R) printing. The conducting first layer and insulating second layer are R2R gravure printed with silver nanoparticle ink and a thermally cross-linkable dielectric ink, respectively. Above 10 MS/m conductivity is obtained for the first layer, which passes three times through the 5 m long drying unit at 5 m/min speed. The floating bridge is inkjet printed with silver nanoparticle ink and the prototype tag is measured over a reading distance of ca. 2 cm. An equivalent circuit model is presented and the model parameters are optimized to obtain a best fit to the measured frequency response. This indirect measurement provides an estimate of 4.3 μm for the thickness of the dielectric layer sandwiched between the conducting top and bottom layers. Application possibilities for the all-printed RF resonant tag are outlined.

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