Three‐dimensional lightweight metamaterial with ultra‐wideband microwave absorption

Abstract A three‐dimensional lightweight metamaterial (MM) with ultra‐wideband microwave absorption is proposed in this paper. Based on the concept of MMs, periodically arranged resistive films are introduced into the standing frame to form a standing lossy structure, which can introduce electric resonances in the gap between adjacent sub‐wavelength unit cells at lower frequencies. Several standing wave modes are also excited in the standing lossy structure at higher frequencies, resulting in an ultra‐wideband absorption for electromagnetic waves. The full‐wave simulation demonstrates that the MM can absorb over 90% of the incident wave energy in the range 1.46–40 GHz, with a relative bandwidth of 185.9%. The experimentally measured results correspond to the simulated results across the entire frequency range. In addition, the proposed MM is lightweight, easy to fabricate.