Metallic 3D printed Ka-band pyramidal horn using binder jetting

Metallic RF-Microwave components fabricated using additive manufacturing are continually being demonstrated as viable solutions in terms of cost and performance when compared to components fabricated by traditional methods such as machining. In this work, binder jetting is used to fabricate a Ka-Band pyramidal horn antenna, as a test structure to evaluate the performance of this metal 3D printing technology. The measured parameters (S 11 and radiation pattern) have good agreement with the simulated ones. The measured return loss is >20 dB across the band. The simulated antenna gain is 8.43 dBi (at 26.5 GHz), and simulations show that the performance degradation due to the finite conductivity and surface roughness is less than 0.1 dBi.