Abstract
This paper reports a flexible and stretchable metamaterial-based “skin” or meta-skin with tunable frequency selective and cloaking effects in microwave frequency regime. The meta-skin is composed of an array of liquid metallic split ring resonators (SRRs) embedded in a stretchable elastomer. When stretched, the meta-skin performs as a tunable frequency selective surface with a wide resonance frequency tuning range. When wrapped around a curved dielectric material, the meta-skin functions as a flexible “cloaking” surface to significantly suppress scattering from the surface of the dielectric material along different directions. We studied frequency responses of multilayer meta-skins to stretching in a planar direction and to changing the spacing between neighboring layers in vertical direction. We also investigated scattering suppression effect of the meta-skin coated on a finite-length dielectric rod in free space. This meta-skin technology will benefit many electromagnetic applications, such as frequency tuning, shielding, and scattering suppression.
Highlights
Metamaterials have attracted considerable attention due to their inaccessible electromagnetic (EM) properties that can be hardly found in natural materials
As the meta-skins were located in the electric field E-plane of the antenna, the magnetic field H could be coupled to the magnetic resonance from the current loop in the split ring resonators (SRRs)
Due to the stretchable feature of the meta-skin, the dimensions of the SRRs can be altered through stretching along different directions
Summary
Metamaterials have attracted considerable attention due to their inaccessible electromagnetic (EM) properties that can be hardly found in natural materials. The resonance tuning of the reported single meta-atom was realized by shaping the embedded SRR unit in the plane of the host elastomer[39]. Besides the frequency selection, the extension from a single compliant meta-atom to metamaterials will allow us to study the possible cloaking effect of the flexible metamaterial wrapping on a curved dielectric surface. In this paper we report a flexible and stretchable microwave meta-skin and its frequency selective and cloaking effects. The present research work tends to fill the gap from the single stretchable meta-atom to the large scale metamaterials by investigating the possibility of realizing resonance tuning of the planar metamaterials and cloaking effect of the curved metamaterials
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