Tunable nanostructured composite with built-in metallic wire-grid electrode

In this paper, the authors report an experimental demonstration of microwave reflection tuning in carbon nanostructure-based composites bymeans of an external voltage supplied to the material. DC bias voltages are imparted through a metal wire-grid. The magnitude of the reflection coefficient is measured upon oblique plane-wave incidence. Increasing the bias from 13 to 700 V results in a lowering of similar to 20 dB, and a blueshift of similar to 600 MHz of the material absorption resonance. Observed phenomena are ascribed to a change of the dielectric response of the carbon material. Inherently, the physical role of tunneling between nanofillers (carbon nanotubes) is discussed. Achievements aim at the realization of a tunable absorber. There are similar studies in literature that focus on tunable metamaterials operating at either optical or THz wavelengths. (C) 2013 Author(s). All article content, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.