Popular Answers (2)

2 years ago
Suhas Dinesh
Tezpur University
Dielectric Substrate: FR4 (high loss, low gain antenna, cheap, easy availability); low loss and
low permittivity (RT Duroid 6002, PTFE, high gain antennas); portable n mobile (RO4730,
high performance, low weight, low permittivity, low loss, low distortion); ceramic (Rogers RO
3200, low cost, GPS patch antenna) etc..
Dielectrics are used for improved electrical and mechanical stability.They are used to reduce the
size of the antenna (higher permittivity, lower size) and can help to produce displacement current
which produces time varying Magnetic Field (by Ampere's Law). This can in turn produce time
varying Electric Field (by Faraday's law) and a propagating EM field is created. Hence, a
substrate can enhance antenna's radiation capability.
Microstrip line and ground: Copper, Silver or Gold. Silver has higher conductivity than copper
or gold. But copper is much harder than the other two. Alas, copper is highly reactive. Copper is
cheap.
-------------------------------------
Raymond Rumpf
University of Texas at El Paso
There are no "exact" materials since different designs are made from different materials. In
general, however, there is a ground plane, a dielectric slab on top of that, and a metal patterned
layer on top of that forming the antenna. Perhaps the most typical microstrip antennas are
formed into standard printed circuit boards so the metals are usually copper and the dielectric
something like FR4. However, most any conductive metal and dielectric will suffice.

All Answers (10)

Raymond Rumpf
University of Texas at El Paso
There are no "exact" materials since different designs are made from different materials. In
general, however, there is a ground plane, a dielectric slab on top of that, and a metal patterned
layer on top of that forming the antenna. Perhaps the most typical microstrip antennas are
formed into standard printed circuit boards so the metals are usually copper and the dielectric
something like FR4. However, most any conductive metal and dielectric will suffice.
------------------------------
Suhas Dinesh
Tezpur University
Dielectric Substrate: FR4 (high loss, low gain antenna, cheap, easy availability); low loss and
low permittivity (RT Duroid 6002, PTFE, high gain antennas); portable n mobile (RO4730,
high performance, low weight, low permittivity, low loss, low distortion); ceramic (Rogers RO
3200, low cost, GPS patch antenna) etc..
Dielectrics are used for improved electrical and mechanical stability.They are used to reduce the
size of the antenna (higher permittivity, lower size) and can help to produce displacement current
which produces time varying Magnetic Field (by Ampere's Law). This can in turn produce time
varying Electric Field (by Faraday's law) and a propagating EM field is created. Hence, a
substrate can enhance antenna's radiation capability.
Microstrip line and ground: Copper, Silver or Gold. Silver has higher conductivity than copper
or gold. But copper is much harder than the other two. Alas, copper is highly reactive. Copper is
cheap.---------------------------
Richard J Williams
Raytheon Company
There aren't any, as the designer/engineer you need to determine the materials based on
application and performance. Even then there is not one set of materials, you have a lot of
freedom in that respect. Please take a look at some antenna theory textbooks, such as Balanis',
and read the sections on microstrip antennas and reflectarrays------------------
Anveshkumar Nella
Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology
I would like to add one point to suhas Dinesh answer,
Basically, FR-4 is not reliable for high frequency applications like more than 4GHz.
you can prefer RT Duroid (2.2, 0.0009).-------------------
Ashok Kumar Srinivasan
Jyothishmathi Institute of Technology and Science
FR4, RT Duroid, Roger and some substrates are used for specific applications (al2o3, PDMS,
Teflon).---------------------------
Wriddhi Bhowmik
Haldia Institute of Technology
FR4 can be used, but at high frequency performance degrades if used FR4 but often it is taken as
design material due to easy availability and cost effectiveness.
For better performance Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), RT Duroid can be used. But these are
expenssive.------------------------
Blaine Bateman
EAF LLC
I would like to add a few points:
Microstrip Patch Antenna does NOT imply there must be a substrate (other than air). Thus, you
can make a patch antenna with sheet of metal for the ground plane, and a sheet of metal for the
patch. You can cut a hole in the ground plane and insert coaxial cable, peeling back the shield,
solder to the ground plane; extending the center conductor, solder to the patch. Most drill a small
hole in the patch so the center conductor can extend through, bend it over and solder. You need
to know how to find the feed point for 50 ohms.
Such an "air loaded" patch will be larger (as others have noted) but generally will have higher
peak gain (if the ground plane is large enough) and higher efficiency.
As noted the feed can be microstrip line etc. It is possible to construct such a feed on the bottom
of a 2-sided PCB then use a pin to feed through to the patch on the other side of the dielectric.
For frequencies in the few GHz range, you need a pretty thick dielectric if you want a good
bandwidth. In other words, if you create a 2.5 GHz patch antenna using 0.060" FR4, the
bandwidth will be very narrow. Up to a point, you can improve the bandwidth with greater
thickness from the patch to the ground plane. If you get very thick the stability issues mentioned
can be a problem.
Higher dielectric material can serve to isolate the antenna from nearby things like your hand or
your head etc. The dielectric material increases the effective thickness (aka the electrical
thickness) which helps bandwidth as noted.
------------------------------------
Dhanu Chettri
Manipur University
Dear Priyatham Pallapotu,
As mentioned by other researchers there is no specific material the basic need is the readiatng
patch and the ground plane should be aconductor, ang ther dielectric substrate must have low
dielectric loss, high strength to weight ratio etc
If your are using any soft tools for your antenna design such HFSS, CST, feko etc than u can find
a list of substrate uhich can be used from there. If u are beginning than stick to FR4 for your
operation frequency less than 4 GHz because FR4 is very easily available but if u go for higher
frequency application you can go for RT duroid. You can always check the dielectric substrate
properties and compare if it suits with your design.
Good luck
With Regards
Dhanu Chettri
------------------------------------
Amipara Manilal D
Balaji Institute of Engineering & technology, Junagadh
I agree with the suggestions given by Raymond Rumpf and Suhas Dinesh. Only I will add to it
that the various materials suggested by Suhas Dinesh is decided based on frequency of operation,
application and cost affordability to the product.
For example, FR$ is cheap and widely/easily availability but can be used for the lower
frequencies (may be below 1 GHz) due to high loss at high frequency and its dielectric constant
variation in spatial. In terms of frequency range, next comes PTFE, next Duroid etc
Blaine Bateman
-------------------------
EAF LLC
I would like to add a comment about FR4 in practical terms. There are other types of antennas
that can be created on a piece of 0.06 FR4 than a microstrip patch, such as variations on a
monopole, various dipoles, and inverted F (IFA) antennas, to name a few. Although most
traditional RF practitioners would say you cannot use FR4 for, say, a 2.5 GHz antenna, that in
fact depends on the application. In my actual industry experience, we designed and made 10s of
thousands of 2.5 GHz antennas, mainly monopoles and dipoles, and shipped them into successful
commercial applications.
The real consideration, which has been suggested above, is a combination of cost and desired
performance. In many cases the much lower cost of FR4 compared to PTFE-based boards over-
rides the slight loss in performance.
We also did make a few microstrip patches using FR4 for some very specific applications. One
was a Bluetooth antenna in an automotive application. It turned out that due to the highly
scattering environment inside a car, the best solution was a patch located on the floor of the car,
where the original ~5 dBi directional pattern was reflected all over the interior and gave
sufficient link budget in any location in the car for passengers.