A Reusable 3D Printed Cavity Resonator for Liquid Sample Characterization
Abstract In this paper, additive manufacturing (3D printing) is used to fabricate and demonstrate a reusable microfluidic coupled rectangular cavity resonator for characterizing liquids in small volumes. The designed cavity operates in the fundamental TE101 mode and resonates at 4.12 GHz. The resonance of the cavity is perturbed by the sample placed in a small volume sample holder through a slot in the top cover. Two different perturbation configurations are investigated: i) strongly coupled (liquids with low to medium dielectric constants), and ii) weakly coupled (liquids with medium to high dielectric constant). The sample holder is loaded with different solvents and the shift in the resonance frequency is monitored. Based on these changes, the dielectric constant of the solvent is theoretically estimated and compared to standard values. The reusable liquid sensor holds significant potential in identifying and quantifying unknown liquid samples in the supply chain.