Pangolin‐Inspired Stretchable, Microwave‐Invisible Metascale

Abstract Microwave‐invisible devices are emerging as a valuable technology in various applications, including soft robotics, shape‐morphing structures, and textural camouflages, especially in electronic countermeasures. Unfortunately, conventional microwave‐absorbing metastructures and bulk absorbers are stretching confined, limiting their application in deformable or special‐shaped targets. To overcome such limitations, a conceptually novel soft–rigid‐connection strategy, inspired by the pangolin, is proposed. Pangolin‐inspired metascale (PIMS), which is a kind of stretchable metamaterial consisting of an electromagnetic dissipative scale (EMD‐scale) and elastomer, is rationally designed. Such a device exhibits robust microwave‐absorbing capacity under the interference of 50% stretching. Besides, profiting from the covering effect and size‐confined effect of EMD‐scale, the out‐of‐plane indentation failure force of PIMS is at least 5 times larger than conventional device. As a proof of concept, the proposed device is conformally pasted on nondevelopable surfaces. For a spherical dome surface, the maximum radar cross‐section (RCS) reduction of PIMS is 6.3 dB larger than that of a conventional device, while for a saddle surface, the bandwidth of 10 dB RCS reduction exhibits an increase of 83%. In short, this work provides a conceptually novel platform to develop stretchable, nondevelopable surface conformable functional devices.