Communication and Sensing Circuits on Cellulose

• Published in: Journal of low power electronics and applications Vol. 5; no. 3; pp. 151 - 164
• Main Authors: Alimenti, Federico, Mariotti, Chiara, Palazzi, Valentina, Virili, Marco, Orecchini, Giulia, Mezzanotte, Paolo, Roselli, Luca
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 2015
• Subjects: Adhesive strength; all-natural electronic; Cellulose; Circuits; circuits on cellulose; Copper; Detection; green electronics; Hardware; Internet; Internet of Things (IoT); Laminates; paper-based substrates; wireless sensors
• ISSN: 2079-9268; 2079-9268
• DOI: 10.3390/jlpea5030151

This paper proposes a review of several circuits for communication and wireless sensing applications implemented on cellulose-based materials. These circuits have been developed during the last years exploiting the adhesive copper laminate method. Such a technique relies on a copper adhesive tape that is shaped by a photo-lithographic process and then transferred to the hosting substrate (i.e., paper) by means of a sacrificial layer. The presented circuits span from UHF oscillators to a mixer working at 24 GHz and constitute an almost complete set of building blocks that can be applied to a huge variety communication apparatuses. Each circuit is validated experimentally showing performance comparable with the state-of-the-art. This paper demonstrates that circuits on cellulose are capable of operating at record frequencies and that ultra- low cost, green i.e., recyclable and biodegradable) materials can be a viable solution to realize high frequency hardware for the upcoming Internet of Things (IoT) era.