Novel metamaterial and manufacturing process thereof
Technical Field
The invention relates to the field of metamaterials, in particular to a novel metamaterial and a manufacturing process thereof.
Background
The metamaterial is a novel artificially synthesized material and has special electromagnetic response characteristics, so that the metamaterial can be widely applied to the fields of electromagnetic communication and the like. The metamaterial comprises at least one material sheet layer, wherein each material sheet layer comprises a flat plate-shaped dielectric substrate and an artificial metal microstructure attached to the dielectric substrate, the dielectric substrate is mainly a glass fiber epoxy resin solidified sheet, and the artificial metal microstructure is generally a metal wire with a certain geometric pattern such as an I-shaped shape, a snowflake shape, an open resonant ring shape and the like.
However, because the existing metamaterial manufacturing process uses the processing process of PCB, i.e. a metal foil layer is deposited on the surface of a dielectric substrate slice layer, after exposure plate making and development, the protective film of the region to be etched is removed, and during etching, the metal in the region is contacted with a chemical solution, dissolved and corroded, and the rest is a metal wire with a certain geometric shape pattern. Therefore, most of the dielectric substrates can only be made of materials with the main component of glass fiber, and brittle dielectric substrates such as ceramics cannot be used, so that the selectivity of the metamaterial dielectric substrate is greatly reduced. In addition, the metamaterial with the glass fiber as the dielectric substrate has high dielectric constant (epsilon) and dielectric loss tangent (Tan delta) which can cause signal attenuation when electromagnetic waves pass through the metamaterial made of the dielectric substrate.
Disclosure of Invention
The technical problem to be solved by the present invention is to provide a novel metamaterial and a manufacturing process thereof, aiming at the above-mentioned defects of the prior art.
The technical scheme adopted by the invention for solving the technical problems is as follows: a novel metamaterial is constructed and comprises at least one material sheet layer, wherein each material sheet layer comprises a medium substrate, a photosensitive composite layer and a metal layer, the photosensitive composite layer is located between the medium substrate and the metal layer, and the metal layer is fixed on the medium substrate through the photosensitive composite layer.
Further, the photosensitive composite layer may be made of an epoxy resin containing a photosensitive curing agent.
Further, the epoxy resin may be bisphenol a type epoxy acrylate or urethane acrylate.
Further, the thickness of the photosensitive composite layer does not exceed 1 mm.
Further, the dielectric substrate is made of a high molecular polymer material, a ceramic material, a polytetrafluoroethylene material, a ferroelectric material, a ferrite material, or a ferromagnetic material.
Furthermore, the metal layer is composed of a plurality of artificial metal microstructures arranged in an array.
The invention also provides a manufacturing process of the novel metamaterial, which comprises the following steps:
s1, horizontally placing and fixing the medium substrate on the workbench;
s2, coating a photosensitive material on the medium substrate to form a photosensitive composite layer;
s3, covering the artificial metal microstructure on the photosensitive composite layer to form a metal layer;
and S4, irradiating the photosensitive composite layer with ultraviolet light to cure the photosensitive composite layer.
Further, in step S2, the photosensitive material is coated on the dielectric substrate by screen printing or uniform spraying.
Further, in step S3, after the artificial metal microstructure is covered on the photosensitive composite layer, an external force is applied to bond the metal layer and the dielectric substrate.
Further, the step S4 is performed under a vacuum environment, and the irradiation is continued for 2-10 minutes.
The novel metamaterial and the manufacturing process thereof have the following beneficial effects: the manufacturing process is simple, multiple materials can be selected as the metamaterial dielectric substrate through the manufacturing process to meet the requirements of different metamaterial electromagnetic properties, and meanwhile, the dielectric substrate and the metal pattern layer are combined more firmly.
Drawings
FIG. 1 is a schematic structural diagram of one embodiment of the novel metamaterial;
fig. 2 is a flow chart of a process for making the novel metamaterial of the present invention.
Detailed Description
Referring to fig. 1, the present invention relates to a novel metamaterial, which includes a material sheet, where the material sheet includes a dielectric substrate 1, a photosensitive composite layer 2 and a metal layer, and the dielectric substrate 1 may be made of a polymer material, a ceramic material, a teflon material, a ferroelectric material, a ferrite material, or a ferromagnetic material. In the present embodiment, the dielectric substrate 1 is made of a material other than glass fiber epoxy resin, such as polytetrafluoroethylene, so that a low dielectric constant (epsilon) and a low dielectric loss tangent (Tan delta) can be obtained, thereby causing no problem of signal attenuation when electromagnetic waves pass through a metamaterial made of the dielectric substrate.
The photosensitive composite layer 2 is located between the medium substrate 1 and the metal layer, and the metal layer is fixed on the medium substrate 1 through the photosensitive composite layer 2. The photosensitive composite layer 2 may be made of an epoxy resin containing a photosensitive curing agent, and the epoxy resin as a photosensitive material may be bisphenol a type epoxy acrylate or urethane acrylate, or the like. In this embodiment, the photosensitive composite layer 2 is made of bisphenol a type epoxy acrylate containing a photosensitive latent curing agent, which can be mixed with epoxy resin to form a one-liquid type complex, thereby simplifying the preparation procedure of epoxy resin application. The bisphenol A epoxy acrylate has the advantages of high curing speed, good chemical solvent resistance of a coating film, high hardness and the like.
The thickness of the photosensitive composite layer 2 is only 1mm, the total volume is small, the gravity is light, and the application to the occasions such as antenna housing is convenient. To achieve the desired physical properties, metamaterials typically include multiple material sheets, which are typically stacked together parallel to each other and then integrated by a packaging process. The stacked structure has the advantages of simple positioning and packaging.
The metal pattern layer is composed of a plurality of artificial metal microstructures 3 arranged in an array, and the artificial metal microstructures 3 are distributed on the surface of the medium substrate 1 and are usually metal wires with a certain geometric shape, such as an I-shaped shape, a snowflake shape, an open resonant ring and the like. Due to the existence of the artificial metal microstructures 3, the metamaterial formed by the medium substrate 1 and the artificial metal microstructures 3 can respond to an electric field and a magnetic field, so that the propagation direction of electromagnetic waves is changed, and the effects of converging, diverging, deflecting and the like of the electromagnetic waves are caused. In this embodiment, the artificial metal microstructure 3 is in an i shape, and the thickness of the metal layer is 1 mm.
Please refer to fig. 2. The preparation process of the novel metamaterial sequentially comprises the following steps of:
s1, horizontally placing and fixing the medium substrate 1 on a workbench;
s2, coating a photosensitive material on the medium substrate 1 to form a photosensitive composite layer 2;
s3, covering the artificial metal micro-structure 3 on the photosensitive composite layer 2 to form a metal layer;
s4, the photosensitive composite layer 2 is irradiated with ultraviolet light to cure the photosensitive composite layer 2.
In step S2, a photosensitive material is coated on the dielectric substrate 1 by screen printing or uniform spraying.
In the step S3, after the artificial metal microstructure 3 is covered on the photosensitive composite layer 2, an external force of about 0.1MPa is applied to bond the metal pattern layer and the dielectric substrate 1.
And the step S4 is carried out in a vacuum environment, the ultraviolet light irradiates other surfaces of the photosensitive material except the surface where the metal layer is positioned for 2-10 minutes, and the manufacturing process is simple and efficient, and is convenient for large-scale mass production.
In summary, the manufacturing process of the invention is simple, and various materials can be selected as the dielectric substrate 1 of the metamaterial by the manufacturing process to meet the requirements of different metamaterial electromagnetic properties, and meanwhile, the dielectric substrate 1 and the metal pattern layer are combined more firmly.
While the present invention has been described with reference to the embodiments shown in the drawings, the present invention is not limited to the embodiments, which are illustrative and not restrictive, and it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various changes and modifications can be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as defined in the appended claims.