Graphene-Based Dipole Antenna for a UHF RFID Tag

This paper describes the design and measurements of a remote frequency identification (RFID) tag built of a graphene-based dipole antenna and a chip operating in the ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) band in accordance with the EPC Global Class 1 Gen. 2 standard. A custom-designed antenna has been designed first. Then, it was used to construct several tags that have been tested with a standard RFID reader to reveal that each one is fully operational, although the interrogation range for the graphene-based circuits has been limited in comparison to copper antennas. This can be attributed to increased sheet resistance of a graphene layer and-in the case of tags fabricated on paper-also to significant dielectric losses of the substrate material. However, it seems that for applications where the interrogation range is not crucial the novel antenna can be an alternative to much more expensive circuits printed with silver-based inks.