Sprayable Antennas Work On Almost Any Surface
2D Titanium Carbide is highly conductive. And when you make ink out of it you can spray 2D antennas on almost anything.
Source: Drexel.edu
Nowadays the world is more and more wireless. But to have wireless connection requires antennas. And that often complicates things as antennas tend to be from a large solid block of metal. Material scientists from the Drexel University want to solve this using sprayable antennas that can work on almost any surface.
The key to their new technology is a fascinating new material “Mxene” which is incredibly thin. “Mxene” materials are 2D materials made from carbides, nitrides and carbonitrides. In this specific case, they are using a 2D form of titanium carbide (TiC) that is highly conductive and allows transmitting radio waves. The team created a powdered from of TiC and than mixed it with water getting a sort of ink. This can then be sprayed almost anywhere changing that surface into a 2D antenna.
When testing the antennas they found that even though they are extremely thin they produce radio waves comparable to existing antennas. The thinnest antenna they tried was just 62 nanometers thing – that is about a thousand times thinner than paper and almost fully transparent. But the best performing were antennas with a thickness of 8 micrometers where their output was almost at their theoretical maximum. Another benefit was that the antennas required no additives and warming up to connect the nanoparticles together. All you need is just to spray it on.
Antennas so small have the potential to connect virtually anything into a network, including flexible materials or wearable electronics. But only time will tell whether similar antennas will take over the world.
Sources:
- http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/9/eaau0920
- https://drexel.edu/now/archive/2018/September/MXene-spray-antennas/
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