Rapid and high-performance processing technology for large-area frequency selective surfaces

Frequency selective surfaces (FSSs) with periodic smart structures have widespread applications in many areas, especially in electromagnetic wave filters. In this paper, a rapid and high-performance processing technology for large-area FSSs was presented. This novel technology combined laser direct writing lithography (LDWL) with wet chemical etching (WCE) (i.e., LDWL + WCE). Basing on experiments and in the condition of optimal parameters (i.e., 40 mW laser power, 1000 mm/s scan speed, single scan, 20 μm hatch space, pattern-profile scan path, and ferric chloride aqueous solution as etchant) of LDWL + WCE, a large-area (200 × 200 mm2) aperture type FSS with 625 square-loop units was fabricated within 8 min on a FR-4 copper-clad plate (with 12 μm-thickness copper layer). When the same FSS was prepared by commonly-used laser direct ablation (LDA) technology with itself optimal processing parameters, it needed about 62 min (nearly 8 times as much time as the former). Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and surface probe profilometry analyses showed that the edges of the square-loop patterns fabricated by LDWL + WCE were steeper and smoother, and the FR-4 substrate had no damage. In an anechoic chamber, the electromagnetic wave filtering performances of the as-prepared FSSs were tested, and the results indicated that the FSS fabricated by LDWL + WCE had a bandpass response at 7.08 GHz with a transmittance of 97.75%. Its frequency response curve was in better agreement with the simulation result. The technology of LDWL + WCE also has the potential to rapidly fabricate large-area and/or non-planar FSSs with high performance.