A Novel Approach for Fabrication of Flexible Antennas for Biomedical Applications

We have proposed and developed an original approach for fabrication flexible antennas for biomedical application. The technology is based on magnetron sputtering and laser ablation methods. The magnetron sputtering method is used to deposit a thin layer of metal (copper) on a flexible (polyimide) substrate. Then laser ablation is utilized to cut an antenna structure from the copper layer. For testing our approach we have chosen a number of examples of flexible antenna scheme with microstrip feeding structure working in ISM bands. A number of test flexible antennas were fabricated. Return loss (S11) of fabricated antennas were measured experimentally and calculated numerically. The obtained experimental results are in good agreement with the numerical ones. The proposed technology has significant advantages in cost, speed and flexibility over lithography processes commonly utilized for such applications.