A High-Temperature and Frequency-Reconfigurable Multilayer Frequency Selective Surface Using Liquid Metal

Abstract

A high-temperature and frequency-reconfigurable multilayer frequency selective surface (FSS) based on liquid metal is proposed in this work. After construction of a multilayer dielectric cavity with specific dielectric-shaped pillars and the injection of liquid metal (EGaIn) into each layer of the cavity, the liquid metal and dielectric pillars form a slot-type bandpass FSS, and frequency reconfiguration is realized by switching the injection layer. A prototype of the proposed FSS was designed, fabricated and measured. The measured results validated the design well. The good conductivity and fluidity of the liquid metal are utilized to realize the reconfigurable electromagnetic performance of the proposed FSS. This works in the C-band (5 GHz) and Ku band (13 GHz) and has a frequency switching time between 13.1 to 14.2 s. Moreover, due to the good thermal conductivity of liquid metal, the flowing liquid metal can take away heat, and the multilayer FSS can work as cooling plate. The heat transfer performance was investigated by numerical simulations. A 1000 ° plane heat source was set on the bottom surface of the double-layer FSS. The average temperature on the top surface was 62.2 °, when the liquid metal fluid in the FSS had a speed of 1 m/s. The proposed multilayer FSS has strong potential for applications in some special application fields involving stealth and hypersonic aircraft.

Keywords

• Multilayer FSS
• frequency reconfiguration
• liquid metal
• heat transfer