3D Screen Printing: Efficient Additive Manufacturing of Groove Gap Wave Guide Filters in D-band
In this paper, the design and additive
manufacturing of a Groove Gap Waveguide (GGW) filter
in the D-band is presented. For this kind of filters, the
manufacturing of very small periodic pin structures is necessary.
The conventional manufacturing of these structures by CNC
milling is time-consuming and high-precision milling machines
are extremely expensive. Other manufacturing processes such
as screen printing are, therefore, required for the cost-effective
and efficient production of large quantities. The screen printing
process is presented and its suitability for the production of
GGW components in the millimetre-wave area is validated by
a third-order bandpass filter prototype in D-band, which was
manufactured and electrically characterized.