How about a bonded prototype for metamaterials?
This is R from the Sales Technology Group. This time, it's just the text, not the series we made.
It seems that the 5G service has started and the service area is gradually expanding.
Speaking of 5G, it seems that it is characterized by high speed, low delay, and multiple terminals, but it is also a big feature that it is used up to high frequencies.
At present, in Japan, the range of 3.6GHz to 4.6GHz of Sub6 and 27GHz to 29.5GHz of millimeter wave seems to be the frequency band of radio waves used for 5G.
By the way, 4G (LTE) uses each band from 700MHz to 3.6GHz, and will use higher frequencies.
With 5G, the frequency used is high, so the size of the antenna is also small. One wavelength of 4GHz is 7.5cm, and one wavelength of millimeter wave is 1cm. Most antennas are about 1/10 to 1λ in size, so it is likely that you will need to use an antenna that is several millimeters to several centimeters in size.
Radio waves with high frequencies will have characteristics closer to light, and will not wrap around obstacles such as buildings and will not reach the radio waves. Therefore, it is said that antenna technology is important in 5G.
On the other hand, "metamaterial" that we wrote in the title.
"Meta" means "transcendent" and refers to materials that have properties that do not exist in nature. The relative permittivity and relative magnetic permeability have a vacuum of 1, and there is no substance smaller than that, but with proper material design, these values are smaller than 1 for radio waves of a specific frequency. It seems that it is possible to create something that can be negative (an area that we can not keep up with as a shallow student).
What happens if that happens is that it will be possible to completely reflect radio waves and diffract them without loss, and we are vaguely wondering if this metamaterial can deliver 5G radio waves to a wide range. However, we are sure it is being researched and developed all over the place.
For metamaterials, it is necessary to make a metal structure that is about a fraction of the length of the target wavelength. It seems that various studies are being conducted on sticks and rings.
This "size smaller than the wavelength", light has a nanometer-sized structure, which seems to be difficult, but at a frequency of about 5G, it is about a few millimeters to a few 10 millimeters. Isn't it within the range that can be made by printing?
We think that various characteristics can be obtained by stacking metamaterial structures arranged on a flat surface by printing.
It's finally (really finally) our turn.
Antennas and reflectors should not have a presence, so we think that patterns may be created on transparent film or glass.
We are good at laminating such members with high positional accuracy, multi-layered, and laminating between various materials. We think that the base material and bonding material may be special in order to suppress the loss of high frequencies. You can also use our equipment to evaluate newly developed materials.
Weird bonding and materials are welcome (at least for business), so please let us know.