A visible-light-transparent camouflage-compatible flexible metasurface for infrared–radar stealth applications

Abstract A visible-light-transparent metasurface has been designed to achieve infrared (IR)–radar stealth. An optically transparent material, indium tin oxide was chosen in preference to other low-IR-emissivity metals to achieve camouflage compatibility for the IR–radar stealth material. In addition, flexible polyethylene terephthalate was adopted as the dielectric material to in order to benefit from its visible light transparency; its softness could also improve its application prospects. The fabricated structure exhibited a strong absorptivity of over 90% from 8.265 GHz to 17.65 GHz and a low IR emissivity of less than 0.3 in the region of 3–14 μ m. The results demonstrated that the metasurface was polarization independent and it was still able to maintain 90% of its absorptivity with an oblique incidence of 20°. The good consistency between the experimental and simulated results verified that the proposed metasurface can be practically applied in multifunctional stealth technology.