Ultra-wideband low-scattering metamaterial based on combination of water absorber and polarization rotation metasurface

In this paper, an ultra-wideband low scattering metamaterial based on the combination of water absorber and polarization rotation metasurface (PRM) is proposed. The water absorber and PRM realize low backscattering in higher and lower frequency bands, respectively. The mutual influence between the water absorber and PRM is insignificant due to their different design strategies of absorbing and diffusion respectively. Therefore, a continuous low-scattering bandwidth is obtained by designing the water absorber and PRM operating in two adjacent frequency bands. The simulated results show that the radar cross section (RCS) of the proposed metamaterial can be reduced by more than 10 dB in the ultra-wideband band of 2.8-80 GHz at room temperature of 25 degrees C. Moreover, excellent thermal and angle stabilities are obtained for temperatures from 10 to 90 degrees C and incident angles from 0 to 40 degrees, respectively. A prototype of the proposed metamaterial with 12 x 12 unit cells was fabricated and measured. The measured and simulated results were in good agreement, which validated the correctness of the design concept. The proposed metamaterial has promising potential applications for low-observable platforms and antennas.

Automated summary

This paper proposes an ultra-wideband low scattering metamaterial based on the combination of water absorber and polarization rotation metasurface (PRM). The water absorber and PRM achieve low backscattering in different frequency bands. The designed water absorber and PRM operating in two adjacent frequency bands result in a continuous low-scattering bandwidth. The simulated results demonstrate a reduction in radar cross section (RCS) of more than 10 dB in the ultra-wideband band of 2.8-80 GHz, with excellent thermal and angle stabilities.