A novel microwave metamaterial absorber design is introduced along with its manufacturing and characterization. Significant results considering both bandwidth and angular stability are achieved. Parametric analysis and simplified equivalent circuit are provided to give an insight on the key elements influencing the absorber performance. In addition, the constitutive parameters of the effective medium model are obtained and related to the absorber resonant behavior. Moreover, a new thinner and more flexible absorber version, preserving broad bandwidth and angular insensitive performance, is simulated, and an 8 × 8 unit-cells prototype is manufactured and measured for a limited angular margin in an anechoic chamber.
Keywords: angular stability; double-negative media (DNM); left handed media (LHM); metamaterial absorber (MMA); negative refractive index (NIR); polarization-insensitive.