Design, characterisation and fabrication of a broadband polarisation‐insensitive multi‐layer circuit analogue absorber

Abstract

A broadband polarisation-independent circuit analogue absorber comprising multi-layer resistive frequency selective surfaces (FSS) has been presented in this study. The proposed structure consists of a periodic arrangement of square loops loaded with lumped resistors and these square loops are printed on dielectric substrates separated by an air spacer. The simulated result shows the reflectivity below -10 dB in the frequency range from 4.96 to 18.22 GHz (fractional bandwidth of 114.40%) under normal incidence, covering C, X, and Ku bands. An equivalent circuit analysis has been introduced to characterise the proposed absorber, which shows good matching with the full-wave analysis. The effects of the individual FSS layers and the air spacer have been studied and several parametric variations have been carried out to examine the sensitivity of the design parameters on the absorption bandwidth. Finally, the designed absorber has been fabricated and measured in anechoic chamber, which shows good agreement between the experimental results and the simulated responses, under different angles of incidence as well as for various polarisation angles.