Design of wide-bandwidth electromagnetic wave absorbers using the inductance and capacitance of a square loop-frequency selective surface calculated from an equivalent circuit model

The design of wide-bandwidth microwave absorbers is conducted using a square loop-frequency selective surface (SL-FSS) on the surface of the grounded dielectric substrate. The parallel circuit combination of the input impedance of the grounded substrate and the complex impedance of the SL-FSS leads to impedance matching in a broad frequency range. The inductance (L) and capacitance (C) of the SL-FSS is calculated using the equivalent circuit model, which is dependent on the SL-FSS geometry. For the SL-FSS, the inductance and capacitance are calculated from the equations of reactance and susceptance at the resonance frequency (f0) of the equivalent L-C circuit. The circuit is capacitive below f0 and inductive above f0. For a grounded substrate with a quarter wavelength thickness, however, the input impedance is inductive at lower frequencies and capacitive at higher frequencies. Through combining these two impedances, impedance matching can be derived over a wide frequency range with the controlled FSS resistance matched to the free-space impedance. The optimized surface resistance of the FSS conductor is Rs=26 Ω for the widest bandwidth (4.9-16.4 GHz with respect to −10 dB reflection loss), which is consistent with the simulation results obtained via computational tool.