Rigid-flexible interlocked metastructures enable conformal stealth
Cheng-Zhong Sun, Dawei Li, Wenhe Liao, Tingting Liu
Abstract
Inspired by ancient chain mail, we introduce a stealth skin constructed from topologically interlocking units that synergizes mechanical robustness with electromagnetic functionality. This architecture is lightweight, highly conformable to complex surfaces, and load-bearing without sacrificing strength. We demonstrate its application by fabricating an electromagnetic skin with an areal density of only 1.67 kg/m 2 . It achieves over 90% absorption across an ultrabroadband frequency range of 2 to 40 GHz (covering 96.3% of the band) and is insensitive to polarization and incident angle. The skin shows exceptional resilience, maintaining full functionality after 25% unit damage or 10,000 high-curvature bending cycles. When applied to a drone’s wings, this design reduces the radar cross section by over 98%. This work establishes a design strategy for a class of adaptable, multifunctional surfaces for advanced aerospace and wearable technology applications.