MXene membrane in planar microwave resonant structures for 5G applications

Impressive advancements of sensor systems alongside the requirements of their mass deployment via the Internet of Things (IoT) with ultra-low latency, high reliability, and user accessibility have made fifth-generation (5G) telecommunication technology a necessary candidate for the required wireless communication network. Traditionally, microwave and microelectronics technologies employed in 5G use metal components in their structure to satisfy the efficiency demands which are undesirable due to their rigid and corrosion properties in certain novel 5G applications. Recent research trends on microwave devices have utilized conductive carbon-based composite materials that are lightweight and flexible as an alternative to metals. Although these materials' electrical properties are preferable, they are generally implemented as a permanent coating for microwave structure fabrication with no possibility to change or remove them. This work investigates the integration of lightweight MXene circular membranes in microwave resonator and antenna structures. The designed MXene resonator demonstrated three peaks under the sub-6 GHz band of 5G communication in the frequencies of 1.506, 2.527, and 3.546 GHz, which are comparable to conventionally used metals. Moreover, the MXene circular membrane was implemented as a microstrip antenna to offer an operation frequency and amplitude of 1.841 GHz and – 38.895 dB, respectively. The fabricated lightweight MXene antenna demonstrated wireless transmission capabilities and a potential to be implemented in 5G networks, featuring 57% of the thickness and 26.66% of the weight compared to similarly designed copper-based structures. Moreover, the performed simulations demonstrated that adjusting the size of the MXene circular membrane can result in operation frequency changes for the resonator, which indicates the potential of fabricating frequency-tunable structures for sub-6 GHz 5G applications.