Pixelated bicontrollable metasurface absorber tunable in complete X band

Abstract

A pixelated bicontrollable metasurface tunable in the complete X band was designed with its meta-atoms comprising yttrium iron garnet (YIG)-patched pixels and conductive rubber (CR)-patched pixels on a metal-backed silicon substrate. Maximum absorptance of a normally incident plane wave greater than 0.99 is achievable and tunability with absorptance exceeding 0.9 is realizable, with the help of an external magnetostatic field and temperature. The YIG-patched pixels provide magnetostatic control modality with sensitivity of $0.04\mathrm{MHz}{\mathrm{A}}^{-1}\mathrm{m}$ and the CR-patched pixels provide thermal control modality with sensitivity of $1\mathrm{MHz}{\mathrm{K}}^{-1}$. The proposed metasurface absorber can be used to improve the performance of weather radar, police speed radar, and direct broadcast television.

Keywords:

• Bicontrollability
• conductive rubber
• ferrite
• magnetic control
• meta–atom
• pixelated metasurface
• thermal control
• yttrium iron garnet

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Govindam Sharma

Govindam Sharma received the B.Tech. degree in electronics and communication engineering from Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra, India in 2011 and the M.Tech degree from JC Bose University of Science and Technology, YMCA, Faridabad, India in 2015. He is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree in electronics and communication engineering with the Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, National Institute of Technology Patna, Bihar, India. He is interested in metasurfaces absorbers.

Pankaj Kumar

Pankaj Kumar received the B.Tech. degree in electronics and communication engineering from Ujjain Engineering College, Ujjain, India in 2011 and the M.Tech degree from PDPM Indian Institute of Information Technology Design and Manufacturing, Jabalpur, India in 2014. He received the Ph.D. degree in electronics and communication engineering from the Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, National Institute of Technology Patna, Bihar, India. He is interested in metasurfaces for terahertz applications.

Akhlesh Lakhtakia

Akhlesh Lakhtakia is the Evan Pugh University professor and Charles Godfrey Binder professor of engineering science and mechanics at The Pennsylvania State University. His current research interests include nanophotonics, surface multiplasmonics, solar cells, sculptured thin films, mimumes, bioreplication, and forensic science. He has been elected a Fellow of OSA, SPIE, AAAS, APS, IEEE, IoP, RSC, and RSA. He received the 2010 SPIE Technical Achievement Award, the 2016 Walston Chubb Award for Innovation, the 2022 Smart Materials & Structures Lifetime Achievement Award, and the 2022 IEEE Antennas & Propagation Society Distinguished Achievement Award. He is a Jefferson Science Fellow (2022-23) with the US State Department and a Sigma Xi Distinguished Lecturer (2022-24).

Pradip Kumar Jain

Pradip Kumar Jain received B.Tech., M.Tech., and Ph.D. degrees from the Indian Institute of Technology (BHU), Varanasi, India, in 1979, 1981, and 1988, respectively. He became a full professor of electronics engineering at the same institution in 2001. He is currently the Director of the National Institute of Technology Patna, India. A Life Fellow of both the Institution of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineers (India) and the Vacuum Electronic Devices and Applications Society, he is interested in microwave/millimeter-wave devices and circuits, and high-power microwave electron-beam devices.