Theoretical Analysis and Design of Ultrathin Broadband Optically Transparent Microwave Metamaterial Absorbers

Ruixiang Deng; Meiling Li; Badar Muneer; Qi Zhu; Zaiying Shi; Lixin Song; Tao Zhang

doi:10.3390/ma11010107

Theoretical Analysis and Design of Ultrathin Broadband Optically Transparent Microwave Metamaterial Absorbers

Materials (Basel). 2018 Jan 11;11(1):107. doi: 10.3390/ma11010107.

Authors

Ruixiang Deng^{1

2

3}, Meiling Li⁴, Badar Muneer^{5

6}, Qi Zhu⁷, Zaiying Shi^{8

9}, Lixin Song¹⁰, Tao Zhang¹¹

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Inorganic Coating Materials CAS, Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (SICCAS), Shanghai 200050, China. dengrx@mail.ustc.edu.cn.
² Department of Electronic Engineering and Information Science, University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), Hefei 230027, China. dengrx@mail.ustc.edu.cn.
³ University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS), Beijing 100049, China. dengrx@mail.ustc.edu.cn.
⁴ Department of Electronic Engineering and Information Science, University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), Hefei 230027, China. pheelin@ustc.edu.cn.
⁵ Department of Electronic Engineering and Information Science, University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), Hefei 230027, China. badar.muneer@faculty.muet.edu.pk.
⁶ Department of Telecommunication Engineering, Mehran University of Engineering & Technology, Jamshoro 72062, Pakistan. badar.muneer@faculty.muet.edu.pk.
⁷ Department of Electronic Engineering and Information Science, University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), Hefei 230027, China. zhuqi@ustc.edu.cn.
⁸ Key Laboratory of Inorganic Coating Materials CAS, Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (SICCAS), Shanghai 200050, China. shizaiying@student.sic.ac.cn.
⁹ University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS), Beijing 100049, China. shizaiying@student.sic.ac.cn.
¹⁰ Key Laboratory of Inorganic Coating Materials CAS, Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (SICCAS), Shanghai 200050, China. lxsong@mail.sic.ac.cn.
¹¹ Key Laboratory of Inorganic Coating Materials CAS, Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (SICCAS), Shanghai 200050, China. tzhang@mail.sic.ac.cn.

Abstract

Optically Transparent Microwave Metamaterial Absorber (OTMMA) is of significant use in both civil and military field. In this paper, equivalent circuit model is adopted as springboard to navigate the design of OTMMA. The physical model and absorption mechanisms of ideal lightweight ultrathin OTMMA are comprehensively researched. Both the theoretical value of equivalent resistance and the quantitative relation between the equivalent inductance and equivalent capacitance are derived for design. Frequency-dependent characteristics of theoretical equivalent resistance are also investigated. Based on these theoretical works, an effective and controllable design approach is proposed. To validate the approach, a wideband OTMMA is designed, fabricated, analyzed and tested. The results reveal that high absorption more than 90% can be achieved in the whole 6~18 GHz band. The fabricated OTMMA also has an optical transparency up to 78% at 600 nm and is much thinner and lighter than its counterparts.

Keywords: absorption mechanism; broadband absorption; controllable design approach; metamaterial; microwave absorber; optical transparency.