Researchers have developed an automatic drawing machine that uses pens and pencils to draw metamaterials onto paper. They demonstrated the new approach by using it to make three metamaterials that can be used to manipulate the microwave region of the electromagnetic spectrum.Metamaterials are artificially engineered composite materials that derive their properties from patterned microstructures, rather than the chemical composition of the materials themselves.[1]

Figure 1. Researchers develop automatic drawing machine for making paper-based metamaterials

Figure 1 shows "Metamaterials, especially those used as absorbers, generally need to be thin, lightweight, wide and strong, but it isn't easy to create thin and lightweight devices using traditional substrates," said research team leader Junming Zhao from Nanjing University in China. "Using paper as the substrate can help meet these requirements while also lending itself to metasurfaces that conform to a surface or that are mechanically reconfigurable." [2]

Automated drawing

The brand new drawing machine makes use of pens with ink containing conductive materials or regular mechanical pencils with various graphite content material. It has three stepper motors, two of which management the motion of the pen or pencil within the horizontal airplane, whereas the opposite lifts or drops the writing instrument within the vertical airplane. The parameters of the drawing machine, such because the motion velocity, are managed by a pc.

“Some of the paper we tried was not very compatible with the pencils or conductive ink pens, resulting in poor conductivity of the drawn patterns,” stated Zhao. “After some testing, we found the best performance came from using paper that is .22 mm thick, which is easy to obtain and very compatible with the pencils and conductive ink.” [3]

They demonstrated that the polarization converter could rotate linear polarization by 90° between 3.1 and 6.6 GHz with a conversion efficiency of over 90%. The absorber weighed only 58.3 gm and had 90% absorptivity between 2.1 GHz and 10.5 GHz, while the metasurface was developed for radar cross-section reduction, a technique for concealing the radar signal in ships and aircraft utilized by the military. [4]

References:

1. https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/967906
2. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/10/221013194108.htm
3. https://news8plus.com/researchers-develop-automatic-drawing-machine-for-making-paper-based-metamaterials/
4. https://www.hackster.io/news/an-automatic-drawing-machine-for-producing-paper-metamaterials-0bdee96e4b5e

Cite this article:

Thanusri swetha J (2022) Researchers develop automatic drawing machine for making paper-based metamaterials, Anatechmaz, pp. 421