ARC Technologies debuts electrically tuned polymers

ARC Technologies (Amesbury, MA, US) has teamed with CompositeTechs LLC, also of Amesbury, to promote development of a new series of electrically-tuned polymer formulations for the plastics and composites industries. With more than 29 years of experience in dielectric tuned polymers and composites for specialty applications, ARC is focusing on developing customized, high-performance materials with a wide variety of electrical properties, in four general areas: low dielectric, conductive, magnetic absorption, and electrical absorption.

The polymers have been tailored to be included in a variety of matrices to allow use in different functional environments and processes. The low dielectric, low-loss thermoplastic compounds exhibit good resistance to moisture and most chemicals, and are ideal for applications at 24 GHz and 77 GHz, including radomes for automotive radar, and can be used as an impedance-matching material or as a dielectric spacer. The highly conductive formulations provide excellent shielding over a wide frequency range, and are used for molding electronic covers and enclosures that can benefit from low cost and design flexibility. The magnetic absorption formulations provide a balance of mechanical and electrical properties and are ideal for surface current reduction, cavity mode suppression, and attenuating near-field emissions from 1 to 18 GHz. The electrical absorption compounds are designed for attenuation in the 10+ GHz range, and can be used for lossy enclosures and housings to reduce/eliminate antenna pattern side lobes and improve performance.

These general formulations can be customized to meet the processing and performance specification requirements for extrusion, injection molding, thermoforming, and composite processes, says Todd Durant, vice president at ARC Technologies: “Our diverse in-depth formulation knowledge, coupled with extensive test capabilities and our detail oriented technical sales support allows us to rapidly customize formulations for our customers with consistent quality and at the right value.” ARC Technologies is the leading supplier of microwave absorbing materials for commercial and defense applications. While providing a complete range of standard absorber products, ARC Technologies also offers dielectric materials, composites, radomes, and radar absorbing structures (RAS).

All of the materials are halogen free, RoHs and REACH compliant. Samples of the materials were on display at the 2017 CAMX conference in Orlando, FL, US. CompositeTechs will provide technical, sales and marketing, business development and related support.