Design and Development of a Hybrid Broadband Radar Absorber Using Metamaterial and Graphene

Stealth airborne systems are low observable platforms, which bring together technologies in the field of aerodynamics, electromagnetics, and material science. Radar absorbing materials/structures play a key role in the design of such stealth airborne platforms. In this paper, a radar absorber has been fabricated based on the design of a nonperiodic metallic patch coated with graphene. The simulation results of the novel design over an ultrawideband (1-60 GHz) yield good absorption (99.93%). With the constraint of fabrication facility, a small unit cell of the structure has been fabricated and measured. The measurement results show a good agreement with the simulation results. The absorption bandwidths, thickness, and weight of the structure are some of the key elements that were considered in the design model. It has been observed that the design allows the electric potential tuning by changing the Fermi energy of the graphene layer. The significant absorption of the proposed design in ultrawideband shows that it has potential applications in the RF stealth technology.