Fully inkjet printed RF inductors and capacitors using polymer dielectric and silver conductive ink with through vias

In this paper, fully inkjet printed multilayer capacitors and inductors are fabricated and characterized using poly 4-vinylphenol (PVP) ink as the dielectric layer and silver nanoparticle ink as the conductor. Inkjet printed through vias, created with a novel dissolving method are used to make RF structures in a multilayer inkjet printing process. The vias have been realized in a 350-nm PVP film and exhibit resistance better than 0.1 Ω. Spiral inductors from 10 to 75 nH have been realized with maximum quality factors around five. The 10-nH inductor exhibits a self-resonant frequency slightly below 1 GHz. Metal-insulator-metal capacitors are realized with densities of 50 pF/mm-2. These capacitors demonstrate values ranging from 16 to 50 pF. The 16-pF capacitor shows a self-resonant frequency over 1.5 GHz. The successful implementation of inductors and capacitors in an all inkjet printed multilayer process with vias is an important step toward fully inkjet-printed large area and flexible RF systems.