Consumer Electronics Applications

Transparent Antennas

NANOWEB® Transparent 5G Antenna in ARfusion™ Smart Lens

META demonstrated the world’s most transparent antenna in prescription lenses for extended reality applications at AWE USA 2022.

5G connectivity directly offers several benefits: 100x more bandwidth, 10x decrease in latency, enhanced display resolution and wide field of view, telepresence for hands free expert support, eye tracking and seamless interaction with cloud-based AR applications, for example, bringing detailed information on demand to objects in the environment.

Transparent antennas are useful for integrating antenna functionality in surfaces while maintaining visibility, such as vehicle windshields and windows. They are designed by META and manufactured using our proprietary NANOWEB® material, a highly transparent metal mesh, which is an improved alternative to Indium tin oxide (ITO). The key benefit of NanoWeb transparent antennas is that high conductivity is maintained without sacrificing the electromagnetic behaviour of the antennas.

Specifications

  • Optical Transmission up to 98%
  • Colour neutral
  • Haze <1%
  • Designed for frequencies 400 MHz – 92 GHz
  • On most flexible films (e.g. PET, PC)
  • On most substrates (e.g. glass and, sapphire)
  • Large area applications (up to 300 mm)

Benefits

  • Very transparent to the human eye
  • High conductivity
  • Excellent radiation performance

Application Areas

  • Radar absorbing and scattering
  • 5G Antennas (vehicles)
  • Beam steering (including radar detection)
  • Bluetooth antenna (wearables)

NanoWeb Transparent Antenna vs. Identical Metallic

Below are photos of a 5 GHz transparent antenna, along with its measured reflection coefficient compared with an identical metallic version. The graph on the right shows that NANOWEB® transparent antenna (blue line) offers very similar performance to an identical conventional metallic version of the same antenna design.