Ultrathin microwave metamaterial absorber utilizing embedded resistors

Abstract

We numerically and experimentally studied an ultrathin and broadband perfect absorber by enhancing the bandwidth with embedded resistors into the metamaterial structure, which is easy to fabricate in order to lower the Q-factor and by using multiple resonances with the patches of different sizes. We analyze the absorption mechanism in terms of the impedance matching with the free space and through the distribution of surface current at each resonance frequency. The magnetic field, induced by the antiparallel surface currents, is formed strongly in the direction opposite to the incident electromagnetic wave, to cancel the incident wave, leading to the perfect absorption. The corresponding experimental absorption was found to be higher than 97% in 0.88–3.15 GHz. The agreement between measurement and simulation was good. The aspects of our proposed structure can be applied to future electronic devices, for example, advanced noise-suppression sheets in the microwave regime.