In this work a novel combination of printed electronics using conductive nanoparticle ink together with 3D printing of dielectric material is presented as one integrated process. This allows fabrication of complicated 3D electromagnetic (EM) structures such as wide range of different antennas and microwave devices to simultaneously include printing of conductive nanoparticle ink within 3D dielectric configurations. Characterization of conductive ink and polymer based substrate has been done to ensure proper RF, electric, thermal and mechanical performance of both substrate and the ink. A meander line dipole antenna on a V-shaped substrate is printed and tested to demonstrate the efficiency and accuracy of proposed technique. The goal in this paper is to provide a low cost, environmentally friendly integrated process for the fabrication of geometrically complicated 3D electromagnetic structures.Index Terms -Nano-particle conductive ink, 3D printing, fabrication of microwave structures, printed meander antenna.

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This paper presents a novel integrated 3D printing technique to print complicated and difficult to fabricate electromagnetic (EM) structures. To demonstrate this technique two separate two-arm conical spiral antennas were fabricated by printing the dielectric cones and the spiral arms using conductive ink simultaneously in an integrated process.A modified conical antenna has been designed with a tapered shape to reduce the profile size of the antenna and improve the radiation pattern and return loss of the antenna compare to a conventional cone.