3dAntenna
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Nanoparticle inks print 3D antennas 'orders of magnitude' better than your boring 2D antenna
If you want better cellphone reception it's time to go small or go home, with researchers at the University of Illinois coming up with a nanoscale printing technique that allows for the creation of so-called 3D antennas. Of course, unless you're hunting for signal in Flatland all antennas are to some degree three-dimensional, but these suckers are printed using nanoparticle silver ink onto a curved substrate, as shown up yonder. The resulting components "exhibit performance metrics that are an order of magnitude better than those realized by monopole antenna designs." In fact these creations are said to approach the Chu-Harrington Limit of theoretical performance in an antenna. Most important? They look pretty darned cool. Shame they'll likely find themselves tucked away inside of a device's chassis -- whenever they actually go into production.
