<div dir="ltr"><div><div><div><span class="im">I'm looking for advice and/or useful places to ask for advice.<br></span></div><div><span class="im"><br></span></div><div><span class="im">We have an optically transparent
electrically conductive material which we are using to build antenna
arrays and electrical circuits (like Butler matrices). It's thin silver
conductors in a square mesh on a 112 micrometers thick PET film. The
mesh consists of silver conductors 4.3 micrometers thick and 23.9
micrometers
wide. These conductors are arranged in a square grid with openings that
are 301 micrometers in each dimension. It appears optically transparent
because you need a magnifying glass to even detect the existence of the
mesh.<br><br></span></div>As an example, I'd like to cut out an
RF transmission line that is 1.65 mm wide, i.e. 6 silver conductors and
five mesh openings wide - like this, only with smooth edges:<br><div dir="ltr" class=""></div><img src="cid:ii_i80k29yp0_14c7b9b3236a24ed" width="428" height="164"><br><br><br>You
see the problem of course. As this is carrying 5-6 GHz RF, we need the
conductive edge to be unbroken and straight, and we want to avoid a
bunch of sliced off conductive stubs along the edge.<br><br></div><span class="im">Reading
about laser cutting in Wikipedia suggests it won't be quite good enough
("positioning accuracy of 10 micrometers and repeatability of 5
micrometers"), but I have no experience here. At least it would be
better than the PCB machining tool we're currently using.<br><br></span></div>Can anyone here help? or suggest where I might go for advice?<br clear="all"><div><div class="gmail_signature"><div><br clear="all">Thanks,<br>Brough Turner<br><br>Mobile: +1 617 285-0433 Skype: brough</div><div><span style="color:rgb(136,136,136)"><a href="http://broughturner.com/" target="_blank">Website</a> | <a href="https://plus.google.com/102447512447094746687/posts?hl=en" target="_blank">Google+</a> | <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/brough" target="_blank">Twitter</a> | <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/broughturner" target="_blank">LinkedIn</a> | <a href="http://www.facebook.com/brough.turner" target="_blank">Facebook</a> | <a href="http://blogs.broughturner.com/" target="_blank">Blog</a> | <a href="http://www.netblazr.com/" target="_blank">netBlazr Inc.</a></span></div><div><br></div></div></div>
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