Development of 3D Printed Metallic Lenses

The research presented in this paper reports, for the first time the development of a 3D printed metallic lens for mm-wave applications, fabricated using Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS). The metallic lens has been designed, simulated, and fabricated for use at E-band. The paper studies the focusing effect of both a 3D Plano-concave and a Biconcave metallic lenses, and focusses towards development of metallic lenses, through 3D printing. Furthermore, the paper also highlights design and manufacture challenges of such 3D printed lenses. Potential applications include horn antennas with an in-built metallic lens, as an alternative to parabolic reflectors or dielectric lens horn antennas for 5G applications.