Optically Transparent Metasurface With Multispectral-Compatible Camouflage and Millimeter-Wave Transmission Window
Jiahao Ge, Xunfan Wang, Bingyang Li, Hanyu Xue, Cheng Zhang, Chaoyun Song, Wei Lin, Yaqian Zhang, Yuchao Wang, Ke Chen, Hongxing Dong, Long Zhang
Abstract
The continuous advancements in multimode detection and surveillance technologies have made multispectral-compatible camouflage increasingly vital for both defense and civilian applications. Meanwhile, stealth radomes require in-band communication of electromagnetic (EM) signals. This article presents a multifunctional metasurface that provides multispectral-compatible camouflage across visible, infrared (IR), and microwave regions while simultaneously enabling efficient transmission in the millimeter-wave (mm-Wave) band. The proposed system consists of bilayer indium tin oxide (ITO) patterned layers for low IR emissivity and broadband radar absorption along with a metal-meshed frequency-selective surface (FSS) layer for mm-Wave transmission. Both simulated and experimental results indicate that the fabricated sample exhibits more than 90% absorption over a wide microwave frequency band ranging from 7.6 to 16.4 GHz, while a transmission window with an insertion loss (IL) of 0.96 dB is realized at 27.9 GHz in the mm-Wave band. In the IR atmospheric window, the measured emissivity of the metasurface is 0.304 and 0.363 for 3–<inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$5~\mu $ </tex-math></inline-formula>m and 8–<inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$14~\mu $ </tex-math></inline-formula>m, respectively. Besides, the measured optical transparency reaches 51.7% in the visible wavelength range of 400–800 nm. This work presents promising opportunities for the engineering application of metasurfaces in optical windows, stealth radomes, and 5G mm-Wave communication systems.