A tunable metasurface based on Vanadium dioxide for Broadband RCS reduction

Abstract

In this paper, a novel chessboard-like of metasurface based on two kinds of unit cell, using Vanadium dioxide (VO2) is proposed, designed, and demonstrated for radar cross-section (RCS) reduction. By accurately designing the geometric parameters of two units, the reflection phase difference between the reflected waves can be obtained over a broadband region, thereby causing the interference cancellation and leading to the RCS reduction. In addition, the utilization of VO2 enables this metasurface to realize the reconfiguration of the working band while under different temperature conditions. Based on the above points, simulation results show that the proposed metasurface is provided with a −10 dB RCS reduction in 6.40–7.23 GHz and 14.97–23.97 GHz at a low-temperature state (300 K), and can be shifted to 7.10–14.13 GHz and 24.10–25.87 GHz at a high-temperature state (350 K), actualizing full coverage of the working frequency band from 6.40–25.87 GHz. Besides, the influences brought by different periodic arrangements of the unit cell and dielectric layer thickness on the reduction of RCS are also discussed in detail.