Microwave dielectric characterisation of 3D-printed BaTiO3/ABS polymer composites

Journal article

3D printing is used extensively in product prototyping and continues to emerge as a viable option for the direct man ufacture of final parts. It is known that dielectric materials with relatively high real permittivity — which are requir ed in important technology sectors such as electronics and communications — may be 3D printed using a variety of techniques. Among these, the fused deposition of polymer composites is particularly straightforward, but the range of dielectric permittivities a vailable through commercial feedstock materials is limited. Here we report on the fabrication of a series of composites composed of various loadings of BaTiO 3 microparticles in the polymer acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), which may be used with a com mercial desktop 3D printer to produce printed parts containing user - defined regions with high permittivity. The microwave dielectric properties of printed parts with BaTiO 3 loadings up to 70 wt% were characterised using a 15 GHz split post dielectric reson ator and had real relative permittivities in the range 2.6 – 8.7 and loss tan gents in the range 0.005 – 0.027. Permittivities were reproducible over the entire process, and matched those of bulk unprinted materials, to within ~ 1 %, suggesting that the techniq ue may be employed as a viable manufacturing process for dielectric composites.

Authors: Castles, F; Isakov, D; Lui, A; Lei, Q; Dancer, C

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Nature Publishing Group
• Journal: Scientific Reports
• Volume: 6
• Article number: 22714
• Publication date: 2016-03-04
• Acceptance date: 2016-02-22
• DOI: 10.1038/srep22714
• ISSN: 2045-2322
• Keywords: Optical materials and structures; Metamaterials; Materials for optics; Materials for devices; Electronic devices