Reconfigurable Frequency Selective Rasorber Covering Extremely Wide Transmission Frequency Range

Abstract

Rasorbers with reconfigurable transmission frequency are of great interest over the past few years. However, existing devices exhibit a limited number of operation modes and cover a narrow transmission frequency range, making them unacceptable for wideband applications. In this work, a high-performance reconfigurable rasorber with mechanically-controlled frequency selective surface (FSS) and an electronically-tuned resistive layer is proposed. Theoretical analysis based on transmission line theory and numerical simulations is performed to investigate the performance of the proposed device. The rasorber were fabricated and free-space measurements were also carried out to validate the simulation results. The device can operate between single-, dual- and triple-passband modes by mechanically tuning the FSS under a fixed external bias voltage. Under single-passband mode, the transmission frequency can also be tuned continuously through simultaneously controlling the mechanically-tunable FSS and electronically-tunable resistive layer. A minimum insertion loss as low as 0.16 dB at 4.03 GHz is achieved from the measurement results. The maximum measured fractional absorption bandwidth is 87.9%, comparable to the state-of-art maximum absorption bandwidth of existing reconfigurable rasorber. The measured overall fractional transmission frequency range under normal incidence wave is 63.9%, far beyond that of any other existing reconfigurable counterparts.

Keywords

• Reconfigurable
• rasorber
• mechanical
• electronic