Tunable, narrow-band, all-metallic microwave absorber

Author/Creator ORCID

Date

2012-10-04

Department

Program

Citation of Original Publication

N. Mattiucci et al., Tunable, narrow-band, all-metallic microwave absorber, Applied Physics Letters, Volume 101, Issue 14 (2012), https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4757282

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Public Domain Mark 1.0
This work was written as part of one of the author's official duties as an Employee of the United States Government and is therefore a work of the United States Government. In accordance with 17 U.S.C. 105, no copyright protection is available for such works under U.S. Law.

Subjects

Abstract

We exploit the metamaterial properties of a thick metallic grating with extreme sub-wavelength slits on a metallic slab to achieve complete absorption of transverse magnetic polarized microwaves. We measure narrow bands of total absorption (up to 99.9999%) from normal to grazing incidence that can be tuned by varying an air gap between the grating and the slab. Unlike typical absorbers, the structure is mostly metallic with a 97% filling factor, and no absorptive material beside the metal itself is employed. We access the absorption properties of metals in the microwave where they are commonly believed to be perfect reflectors.