Microwave properties of sphere-, flake-, and disc-shaped BaFe12O19 nanoparticle inks for high-frequency applications on printed electronics

Spherical (diameter 50-200 nm), flake- (diameter 40-200 nm), and disc-shaped (diameter 10-20 nm) BaFe12O19 nanoparticles were synthesized with a wet chemical method, and their permittivity, electric loss tangent, permeability, and magnetic loss tangent were measured in the 0.045-10 GHz range. The materials were prepared using a solution of 12% PMMA resin in a butyldiglycol solvent for 10-50 wt% filling content. Microstrip transmission-line perturbation was used to measure complex permeability and the split post dielectric resonator method was employed to measure dielectric properties. The frequency dependence of the permeability and permittivity spectra of the composites was affected by their shape and filling fraction. The composites made with spherical particles had higher permeability values (1.4-1.75) at 1 GHz than the composites made with flake (1.25-1.6) or disc particles (1.1-1.3), but the spherical particles caused more losses. The flake particle composite provided permeability and magnetic loss characteristics at both 1 GHz and 7 GHz superior to those of the sphere particle composite in low-loss RF applications. The magnetic loss tangent of PMMA/BaFe12O19 was 0.2-0.3 at 1 GHz, being lower than that of state-of-the-art PANI/BaFe12O19 composites. The sphere composite inks showed permeability values less than 1 at 1-4 GHz ferromagnetic resonance (FMR); they could be used as a tunable material in microwave applications. The sphere and flake composite inks also had sufficient printing quality for the screen-printing fabrication method.