Low frequency absorption properties of a thin metamaterial absorber with cross-array on the surface of a magnetic substrate

The design, fabrication, and measurement of a metamaterial with broadband microwave absorption properties in the low frequency range are presented in this paper. The metamaterial has a layered structure with a thickness of 2.2 mm, and consists of a conventional printed circuit board (PCB) process fabricated cross array on the surface of a flake-shaped carbonyl iron (CI) powder-filled silicon rubber composite magnetic substrate backed by a metal plane. The measurement results indicate that the absorption bandwidth (defined as the frequency range with reflection coefficient below-10 dB) of the proposed structure is 2.55 GHz-5.68 GHz. The power loss mechanism was outlined according to the current distribution on and off the resonance frequency. Moreover, the absorption performance of the proposed structure for incident angles ranging from 0 degrees to 60 degrees for both transverse electric (TE) wave and transverse magnetic (TM) waves were exhibited.