Selective laser sintering of patch antennas on FR4

The paper investigates the fabrication of microwave components using selective laser sintering (SLS) on FR4. This technique has exciting potential for the metallization of low-temperature substrates. The effects of the laser process parameters on the DC conductivity are examined. These results are applied to produce a patch antenna which is compared to simulation and an identical patch antenna fabricated by traditional manufacturing methods. The antenna was demonstrated to match both the simulation and the antenna fabricated by traditional milling. While the conductivity is not as high as that produced by traditional screen printing techniques, this process allows for patterning on substrates that cannot survive the high sintering temperatures of traditional thick film processing.