Optically transparent microwave absorber based on water-based moth-eye structures

Date

2021-03-09

Department

Program

Citation of Original Publication

H. Kwon, G. D’Aguanno, and A. Alú, "Optically transparent microwave absorber based on water-based moth-eye structures," Opt. Express 29, 9190-9198 (2021).

Rights

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Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Subjects

Abstract

We propose an approach to realize an optically transparent microwave absorber based on water-based moth-eye metamaterial structures. The absorber is made of a periodic array of properly shaped glass caps infiltrated with distilled water. Analytical calculations and numerical simulations show that the water-based metamaterial absorbs electromagnetic waves over a wide spectral band ranging from 4GHz to well above 120GHz, showing absorption levels close to 100% for incident radiation that ranges from normal to grazing angles, for both TE and TM polarizations. Yet, the structure is optically transparent, offering exciting opportunities in a variety of civil and military applications, such as for camouflage and shielding systems and in energy harvesting structures.