Nanocomposite based electric and magnetic material enhancing electromagnetic characteristics of cotton substrate radiator

Abstract

A novel method is proposed for improving electromagnetic radiation of antenna in two distant bands independently and consists of nanocomposite based electric, magnetic materials coating on radiator suitable for flexible antenna design. Coplanar waveguide (CPW) fed flexible radiator is designed and fabricated on thin cotton substrate, the radiating patch consists of heptagon ring, rigid structure and printed on surface of substrate. CPW antenna consists of a signal strip placed in between two rectangular ground plane at one side of the substrate and suitable for flexible conformal designs. The rigid strip radiates upper band signal due to its smaller dimension and heptagon strip generate lower band due to its longer structure. A nanocomposite based electric material Graphene Quantum Dots (GQDs) is coated on rigid radiating patch that enhance radiation of upper band and nanocomposite based magnetic material nickel (Ni) nanoparticles on heptagon ring patch to improve lower band characteristics of antenna. GQDs offer high conductivity and low loss tangent through sp²-hybridized carbon atoms, quantum confinement, and edge effects, making them ideal for transparent, flexible antennas with superior signal transmission. Ni has unpaired 3d-electrons that produce magnetic moments due to their spin and orbital angular momentum, enabling high conductivity, permeability, and frequency-dependent properties ideal for antenna. Nanocomposite coated antenna has gain, bandwidth enhancement of 96 % and 90 % respectively as compared to antenna without nanocomposite materials. The fabricated antenna attained 2.4/5.2/5.8 GHz WLAN, ISM, 5 G sub 6 GHz, 2.4/5.0 GHz Wi-Fi and 2.5/3.5/5.5 GHz WiMAX bands, suitable for practical wireless applications.