Application of graphene-based flexible antennas in consumer electronic devices

We describe the fabrication and characterization of Near-Field Communication (NFC) devices based onhighlyflexible, carbon-based antennas composed of stacked graphene multilayers. This materialfeatures a high value of conductivity (4.20 * 105 S/m) comparable to monocrystalline graphite, but ismuch moreflexible and processable. Wefirst studied the replacement of metal with carbon antennasusing computer modeling, to select the best design. Then we manufactured several devices to be usedaccording to the communication protocol ISO/IEC 15693. The inductance of the G-paper antennas wastested before and after hundreds of thousands of bending cycles at bending radii of 45 and 90 mm.During bending the self-resonance frequency and inductance peak showed minimal variation and theresistance at 1 MHz changed from 33.09 Xto 34.18 X, outperforming standard, commercial metallicantennas. The devices were successfully tested by exchanging data with a smartphone and othercommercial NFC readers, matching the performance of standard, commercial metallic antennas. Thegraphene antennas could be deposited on different standard polymeric substrates or on textiles. Smartcards,flexible NFC tags and wearable NFC bracelets were prepared in this way to be used in electronickeys, business cards and other typical NFC applications.