Material survey for a millimeter-wave absorber using a 3D-printed mold

Radio absorptive materials (RAMs) are key elements for receivers in the millimeter-wave range. We previously established a method for production of RAM by using a 3D-printed mold. An advantage of this method is a wide range of choices for absorptive materials to be used. To take advantage of this flexibility, we added a range of absorptive materials to a base epoxy resin, STYCAST-2850FT, and examined the optical performance of the resultant RAM across a wide frequency range under cryogenic conditions. We found that adding a particular type of carbon fiber produced the best performance with a reflectance at 77 K estimated as 0.01%-3% over a frequency range of 20-300 GHz.