Flexible bandwidth-enhanced metamaterial absorbers with epoxy/graphene nanoplatelets-silver nanowire polymer composites as substrates

The realm of flexible devices has seen considerable advancement in recent technology due to their ability to bend and conform to particular shapes. Flexible metamaterial absorbers offer the advantage of combining the features of conventional metamaterials with the attributes of conformal systems, thereby opening new avenues in electromagnetic technology. This work involves the realization of flexible metamaterial absorbers with epoxy/graphene nanoplatelets-silver nanowire (GnP-AgNW) polymer composites as substrates; with a bandwidth enhancement achieved by incorporating losses in the substrate and combining resonances in the unit cell. A novel in-situ technique is employed to synthesize the nanohybrid GnP-AgNW (GA) with different weight percentages of AgNWs grown on GnP (GAx; x = 10, 15, 20 wt%). The dielectric measurements of the polymers showed that an increase in weight percentages of AgNWs in the composite enhanced the dielectric constant as well as losses of the polymer (εr՛: 7.7 to 8.8 and εr՛՛: 0.62 to 1.12). The numerical study on the designed flexible metamaterial absorbers with these substrates of thickness 1.4 mm showed a maximum absorptivity of 99% with a bandwidth (having absorption >90%) varying between 1.2 and 1.86 GHz. The experimental measurements on the fabricated metamaterial absorber were found to match the simulation results closely. The polymer composites demonstrated in this work are attractive candidates as substrates for metamaterial absorbers for conformal applications. This paper approaches the problem of bandwidth enhancement of metamaterial absorbers by material engineering along with the resonant structure optimization leading to a synergetic effect in the properties of absorber.