A Broadband Meta-Absorber for Curved Terahertz Stealth Applications

Abstract

Metasurface absorbers have shown significant potential in stealth applications due to their adaptability and capacity to reduce the backscattering of electromagnetic (EM) waves. Nevertheless, due to the materials used in the terahertz (THz) range, simultaneously achieving excellent stealth performance in ultrawideband remains an important and difficult challenge to overcome. In this study, an ultrawideband absorber is proposed based on indium tin oxide (ITO) and polyethylene-terephthalate (PET), with a structure thickness of only 0.16λ. ITO sheets are utilized to achieve broad-spectrum, optical transparency and flexibility of the metasurface. The results show that absorption higher than 90% can be achieved in the frequency band ranging from 1.75 to 5 THz under normal TE and TM polarizations, which covers a wide THz band. The structure is insensitive to polarization angles and exhibits 97% relative bandwidth above 90% efficiency up to an oblique incident angle of 60°. To further validate the efficiency of the absorption performance, the radar cross-section (RCS) reduction investigation was performed on both planar and conformal configurations. The findings show that under normal incidence EM waves, both flat and curved surfaces can achieve RCS reduction of over 10 dB, covering an extremely wide frequency range of 1.75 to 5 THz. The metasurface presented in this study exhibits significant potential for use in several THz applications, including flexible electronic devices and stealth aircraft windows.