Vacuum Metallization: Does it degrade antenna performance ?

Hi All

Is it possible to design a Bluetooth headset (2402 to 2480 MHz), where the antenna could be an printen inverted-F antenna and the plastic surrounding the PCB has been vacuum metallization (to give the headset metallic look) ?

What I mean is: does the vaccum metallization degrade the antenna performance (ex in terms in lower antenna efficiency) and is it possible to transmit through the vacuum metallization ?


BR hilper

Hello hilper,

Vacuum metalization creates a thin uniform layer of metal (usually aluminum). So if your antenna is completly covered by it then you are actually shielding it from the free space surrounding the headset.
In other words, almost nothing will radiate beyond this shield.

P.

I guess you're a mechanical design engineer or similar. EM-fields are always zero inside (perfect) conductors. So you cannot cover the whole device with metal, but you could have some part of the metal to act as the ground plane for the antenna. This is used in some mobile phones.

The cover may act as a reflector.