A flexible hybrid printed RF energy harvester utilizing catalyst-based copper printing technologies for far-field RF energy harvesting applications

In this paper, the design of a novel flexible RF energy harvester utilizing hybrid printed electronics technology is presented for the first time. The proposed RF energy harvester operates at UHF RFID band (868 MHz ~ 915 MHz) for far-field RF energy harvesting applications. A concept of hybrid printed electronics which takes advantage of both flexibility of low-cost printed electronics and high performances of ICs is introduced. The passive components of the RF energy harvester, such as the circuit layout and the antenna, are printed on a flexible low-cost polymer substrate utilizing a catalyst-based inkjet printing process for the fabrication of copper metallization layers. The surface-mount devices (SMDs) are soldered on the printed circuit board. The proposed approach demonstrates the feasibility of implementing low-cost flexible printed electronics for the Internet of Things (IoT) and stand-alone (“zero-power”) wireless sensor platforms.Grant numbers : The work of A. Georgiadis was supported by the Generalitat de Catalunya under grant 2014 SGR 1551 and by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and FEDER funds through the project TEC2012-39143 (SOSRAD). The authors would like to acknowledge EU COST Action IC1301 "Wireless Power Transmission for Sustainable Electronics (WIPE)".© 2015 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works