A self-biased, low-frequency, miniaturized magnetoelectric antenna for implantable medical device applications

Low-frequency (LF) magnetoelectric (ME) antennas are of great importance in implantable medical device (IMD) applications compared to their electromagnetic (EM) counterparts as they can potentially offer appropriate size miniaturization and lower path loss and higher efficiency. In this work, a self-biased, miniaturized LF ME antenna is proposed, which operates at its electromechanical resonant frequency of 49.9 kHz, with the size scaled down to only 1.75 mm3, which is significantly smaller than that of a comparable EM antenna. The proposed antenna that constitutes of a piezoelectric layer sandwiched between two magnetostrictive layers is characterized in both air and an optimized three-layered human tissue-mimicking phantom media to demonstrate the potential applications in deep-body communications. The near field radiation pattern of the ME antenna is measured experimentally. The maximum received power obtained at a distance of 1.2 m in air and phantom media is 20 and 8 nW, respectively. The proposed antenna has significantly lower path loss of 0.57 dB/m as compared to its higher frequency counterparts. Due to the lower path loss and smaller size, the proposed ME antenna can be suitable in several miniaturized IMD applications.