Switchable broadband/narrowband absorber based on a hybrid metasurface of graphene and metal structures

Abstract

This paper proposes a switchable broadband/narrowband absorber based on a hybrid metasurface comprising graphene and metal in the millimeter-wave regime. The designed absorber achieves broadband absorption when the surface resistivity of graphene R s = 450 Ω/◻ and narrowband absorption when R s = 1300 Ω/◻ and 2000 Ω/◻. The physical mechanism behind the graphene absorber is explored by analyzing the distributions of power loss, electric field, and surface current densities. An equivalent circuit model (ECM) based on transmission-line theory is derived to theoretically investigate the performance of the absorber, with ECM results in good agreement with simulation results. Furthermore, we fabricate a prototype and evaluate its reflectivity by applying various biasing voltages. The results obtained from the experiment are also consistent with those obtained from the simulation. When the external bias voltage is changed from +1.4 V to −3.2 V, the proposed absorber has an average reflectivity ranging from −5 dB to −33 dB. The proposed absorber has potential applications in radar cross-section (RCS) reduction, antenna design, electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding, and EM camouflage techniques.