3-D metal printing in microwave components and antennas applications

It has been recognized that 3-D printing has attracted more and more interest in microwave engineering applications in recent years. Among various additive manufacturing techniques frequently categorized by printing materials, metal printing is a unique one for building objects from metallic powder. The process is totally different from the traditional machining method, which usually introduces some errors in terms of accuracy, alignment and assembly, inevitably deteriorating the performance of the devices, especially the efficiency at high frequency. This paper looks at the application of metal printing to microwave components and antennas. The advent and the maturing of the metal printing technology may revive the fortunes of these devices as designs that are previously difficult to fabricate can be now easily handled. Some newly developed examples implemented via metal printing technique are also included in this paper.