Effect of Electrolyte on a 2D Surface-Based Reconfigurable Liquid Metal Antenna

This paper studies a reconfigurable liquid metal antenna on an open 2D surface. The antenna consists of a room temperature liquid metal, eutectic gallium and indium (EGaIn), and an electrolyte. The electrolyte is used to electrochemically modify the surface tension of the EGaIn and cause it to flow and contract on the open surface. By altering the shape of the EGaIn on the surface, its properties can be tuned over a large range, in principle. This paper studies the types of geometries that can be obtained with this electrochemical tuning and the effect of the electrolyte configuration on the antenna. The larger the volume of electrolyte, the lower resonant frequency and radiation efficiency. Moreover, in the case of electrolyte area with 80 mm × 50 mm × 0.5 mm, the operation frequency continuously tunes from 0.71 GHz to 4.03 GHz for a tuning ratio to 5.6 : 1 and the maximum gain is 3.48 dBi.