International Journal of Antennas and Propagation (Jan 2017)
3D Printed and Photonically Cured Graphene UHF RFID Tags on Textile, Wood, and Cardboard Substrates
Abstract
This paper introduces 3D direct writing and microdispensing of graphene ultrahigh frequency (UHF) radio-frequency-identification (RFID) antennas on textile, wood, and cardboard substrates, subsequently cured either by conventional oven or photonically by pulsed Xenon flashes. Photonic-cured passive UHF RFID graphene tags on cardboard, wood, and textile substrates achieve read ranges of 5.4, 4.6, and 4 meters, respectively. These results are superior to those achieved by the oven-cured tags that featured read ranges of 4.8, 4.5, and 3.6 meters, respectively. This work presents the first integration of 3D printing and photonic curing of graphene antennas on low-cost versatile substrates.