Desktop Inkjet Printing of Foldable Metasurface Antenna on Paper Substrates

Abstract

Metasurfaces enable subwavelength electromagnetic control with transformative wavefront engineering potential. We demonstrate a scalable, cost-effective fabrication route for high-performance metasurface collimators by printing silver nanostructures onto paper using silver halide photochemistry, eliminating complex inks and post-processing whilst enabling roll-to-roll compatibility. A two-layer uniform periodic array excited by a single-patch antenna achieves 6.87 dB simulated gain improvement at 4 GHz. Experimentally, we observe 6.1-dB gain enhancement with 2.56-mg/cm ${}^{\mathrm {^{2}}}$ silver loading, precisely controlled through print iterations and quantified via inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES). The printed structures exhibit 40- $\mu $ m dimensional accuracy ( $\!\lt \!\lambda $ /100 at 4 GHz) with uniform square elements yielding maximal collimator efficiency. The paper-based metasurface antenna displays high gain with exceptional polarization purity and can be considered for demanding applications, such as satellite, radar, and advanced wireless systems.