Size-efficient metamaterial absorber at low frequencies: Design, fabrication, and characterization

Abstract

We numerically and experimentally demonstrated a metamaterial perfect absorber (MPA) in MHz region based on a planar sandwiched metal-dielectric-metal structure. First, the single-peak perfect absorption was obtained at 400 MHz. The ratios of the periodicity of unit cells and the thickness to the absorption wavelength are 1/12 and 1/94, respectively. The advantage of structural design and the mechanism for the low-frequency MPA are described in detail by the comparison between calculation, simulation, and experiment. Influence of the incident angle of electromagnetic (EM) wave for both transverse-electric (TE) and transverse-magnetic (TM) polarization on absorption was also investigated, and the absorption was maintained to be above 95% at incident angles up to 30°. Finally, we propose a self-asymmetric structure, which induces the dual-band perfect absorption in the same range of frequency. The EM behavior of the excitation modes and the mechanism of the dual-band MPA are clearly explained. Especially, when two resonance modes are finely controlled to be close enough, the bandwidth (full width at half maximum) of MPA is enhanced to be nearly wider twice than that in case of single-peak perfect absorption. The enhanced bandwidth is still well preserved by varying the incident angle up to 30° for both TE and TM polarization. The results were also confirmed by both simulation and experiment. Our work is promising for potential practical applications in the radio range, such as radio-frequency shielding devices, single/dual-frequency filters, and switching devices.