Abstract
In this paper, we propose a robust microwave characterization of inkjet printed components on flexible substrates, which aim at measuring the material properties of silver nanoparticle inks and the supporting dielectric spacer employed during measurements. Starting with propagation constant extracted from multiline thru-reflect-line calibration with coplanar waveguide (CPW) standards and then proceeding with finite element modeling of CPWs, the proposed technique can dynamically produce an interpolated search space by automatic driving of simulation tools. In the final stage, the algorithm utilizes a least-square optimization routine to minimize the deviation between model and measurements. Our technique significantly reduces the computing resources and is able to extract the material parameters using even a nominal ink profile. Characteristic impedances for CPWs are extracted using series resistor measurements from 10 MHz to 20 GHz. It is also shown that the proposed characterization methodology is able to detect any changes in material properties induced by changes in fabrication parameters such as sintering temperature. Ink conductivities of approximately 2.973×10^7 S/m and spacer dielectric constant of 1.78 were obtained for the inkjet printed CPWs on PET. In addition, the inkjet printed CPWs sintered at 170°C and 220°C on Kapton had conductivities of 0.187×10^7 and 0.201×10^7 S/m respectively. We verified our technique by measuring the material parameters with conventional approach.