Abstract
An optically transparent metamaterial absorber that can be obtained using inkjet printing technology is proposed. In order to make the metamaterial absorber optically transparent, an inkjet printer was used to fabricate a thin conductive loop pattern. The loop pattern had a width of 0.2 mm and was located on the top surface of the metamaterial absorber, and polyethylene terephthalate films were used for fabricating the substrate. An optically transparent conductive indium tin oxide film was introduced in the bottom ground plane. Therefore, the proposed metamaterial absorber was optically transparent. The metamaterial absorber was demonstrated by performing a full-wave electromagnetic simulation and measured in free space. In the simulation, the 90% absorption bandwidth ranged from 26.6 to 28.8 GHz, while the measured 90% absorption bandwidth was 26.8–28.2 GHz. Therefore, it is successfully demonstrated by electromagnetic simulation and measurement results.
Highlights
Metamaterials are artificial structures with infinitely arranged unit cells [1]
Metamaterial absorbers have been researched actively for realizing optically transparent absorbers [46,47,48], and typically, indium tin oxide (ITO) films have been used for realizing such absorbers [44,49,50]
This paper proposes an optically transparent metamaterial absorber that can be fabricated using inkjet printing technology
Summary
Metamaterials are artificial structures with infinitely arranged unit cells [1]. Since these types of structures can be used to control the permittivity and permeability of materials, they have many electromagnetic applications; for example, they are used in frequency-selective surfaces [2,3], super lenses [4,5], terahertz applications [6,7], artificial magnetic conductors [8,9], and high-impedance surfaces [10,11], physical sensors [12,13], chemical sensors [14,15], biosensors [16,17], invisible cloaking [18,19], imaging [20,21], antennas [22,23,24], and circuits [25,26,27]. The proposed absorber can be used for smart windows of buildings or aircraft [44,45,46] According to these demands, metamaterial absorbers have been researched actively for realizing optically transparent absorbers [46,47,48], and typically, indium tin oxide (ITO) films have been used for realizing such absorbers [44,49,50]. Since the structure of a metamaterial absorber should have infinitely arranged unit cells, the practical use of ITO-film-based optically transparent metamaterial absorbers has limitations. The proposed metamaterial absorber has the advantages of cost effectiveness and simplicity, unlike the fabrication process for ITO-film-based transparent metamaterial absorbers. The proposed optically transparent metamaterial absorber was successfully tested by performing a full-wave electromagnetic simulation and experimental measurements
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