Package-in-Dielectric Liquid Patch Antenna Based on Liquid Metal Alloy

A fully dielectric packaged liquid patch antenna based on liquid metal alloy is presented. In this letter, there are two hollow cavities embedded in a dielectric box, including a rectangular cavity placed at the upper portion acting as the radiating element, and a nonplanar cavity with a central groove under the radiating element serving as the ground plane. The antenna is realized by a three-dimensional printing technique, alleviating assembly tolerance, and uncertainties from a printed-circuit-board approach, which would degrade an antenna performance. The radiating element and the ground plane are fully metallized by filling liquid metal alloy. Unlike traditional liquid antennas, the liquid packaging antenna is completely metallized by conductive liquids, which does not contain any solid metals. The proposed antenna is designed to operate at 5.2 GHz. Results show that the proposed liquid patch antenna produces a satisfactory impedance matching, and a good agreement between simulation and measurement in terms of radiation characteristics is achieved at the desired frequency.