Highly Flexible Graphene-Film-Based Rectenna for Wireless Energy Harvesting

Abstract

Herein, we report the design, fabrication, and performance of two wireless energy harvesting devices based on highly flexible graphene macroscopic films (FGMFs). We first demonstrate that benefiting from the high conductivity of up to 1 × 10⁶ S m^-1 and good resistive stability of FGMFs even under extensive bending, the FGMFs-based rectifying circuit (GRC) exhibits good flexibility and RF-to-DC efficiency of 53% at 2.1 GHz. Moreover, we further expand the application of FGMFs to a flexible wideband monopole rectenna and a 2.45 GHz wearable rectenna for harvesting wireless energy. The wideband rectenna at various bending conditions produces a maximum conversion efficiency of 52%, 46%, and 44% at the 5th Generation (5G) 2.1 GHz, Industrial Long-Term Evolution (LTE) 2.3 GHz, and Scientific Medical (ISM) 2.45 GHz, respectively. A 2.45 GHz GRC is optimized and integrated with an AMC-backed wearable antenna. The proposed 2.45 GHz wearable rectenna shows a maximum conversion efficiency of 55.7%. All the results indicate that the highly flexible graphene-film-based rectennas have great potential as a wireless power supplier for smart Internet of Things (IoT) applications.

Keywords

flexible rectennas / highly flexible graphene-based films / wireless energy harvesting

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RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

2022 The Authors. Energy & Environmental Materials published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd on behalf of Zhengzhou University.