Cobalt–Polymer Nanocomposite Dielectrics for Miniaturized Antennas

Cobalt–polymer magnetic nanocomposites have been synthesized and characterized for their microstructure and properties such as permeability, permittivity, dielectric and magnetic losses from 100 MHz to 2 GHz to study their suitability as antenna dielectrics. Oxide-passivated cobalt nanoparticles were dispersed in epoxies to form nanocomposite toroids and thin-film resonator structures on organic substrates. Permeabilities of 2.10 and 2.65 were measured up to 500 MHz, respectively, with 25-nm to 50-nm and 5-nm nanoparticles in the nanocomposites. The loss tangent ranged from 0.02 to 0.04 at these frequencies. A combination of stable permeability of ∼2 at 1 GHz to 2 GHz and permittivity of ∼7 was achieved with nanocomposites having 5-nm nanoparticles. The magnetic nanomaterials described in this paper can overcome the limitations from domain-wall and eddy-current losses in microscale metal–polymer composites, leading to enhanced frequency stability. The paper also demonstrates integration of metal–polymer nanocomposites as thin-film build-up layers with two-metal-layer structures on organic substrates.