Received: 11 August 2019
DOI: 10.1002/mop.32221
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Low-cost and miniaturized
metamaterial absorber using
3D printed swastika symbol
Minseok Kim | Heijun Jeong |
Daecheon Lim | Saptarshi Ghosh | high and the function it provides underperforms. Instead of
Sungjoon Lim
School of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Chung-Ang University,
Dongjak-gu Seoul, Republic of Korea
Correspondence
Saptarshi Ghosh and Sungjoon Lim, School of Electrical and Electronics
Engineering, Chung-Ang University, Seoul 06974, Republic of Korea.
Email: joysaptarshi@gmail.com (S. G.) and
sungjoon@cau.ac.kr (S. L.)
Funding information
Chung-Ang University, Grant/Award Number: Chung-Ang University
Research Grants in 2018; National Research Foundation of Korea, Grant/
Award Number: 2017R1A2B3003856
Abstract
In this paper, a low-cost metamaterial (MM) absorber is
proposed using 3-dimensional (3D) printing technology. The
unit cell of the proposed MM absorber is motivated from a
swastika symbol to minimize the footprint size. For further
miniaturization, the unit cell is 3D printed by stacking two
blocks. The conductive top patterns are realized by painting
with a silver ink. The proposed MM absorber consists of
2 × 4 unit cell array which is loaded in the rectangular wave-
guide. Its absorptivity is simulated and measured to demon-
strate the performance. The simulated and measured
absorptivity at 1.91 GHz are 99% and 92%, respectively.
KEYWORDS
3D printing, electromagnetic absorber, metamaterial absorber, swastika
symbol
1 | INTRODUCTION
Due to a lot of wireless devices and high-frequency har-
monics from active components, unnecessary or undesired
Microw Opt Technol Lett. 2019;1–7. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/mop
electromagnetic (EM) wave causes critical problems for
electronic circuit and systems such as electromagnetic inter-
ference (EMI), electromagnetic compatibility (EMC), and
signal integrity.1 In general, EM shielding or absorbing
materials are used to block or eliminate the undesired EM
wave.2-4 For EM absorbers, ferrite or composite materials
have been used for large imaginary permittivity and perme-
ability.5,6 However, its fabrication and maintenance costs are
material-based absorbers, structure-based absorbers have
been studied such as Salisbury, Jaumann, and Dallenbach
absorbers.7-9 EM absorbing structures provide advantages of
easy fabrication, low cost, and functionality with tuning
components because of printed circuit board (PCB) process.
For instance, a Salisbury absorber can be realized by loading
the resistive sheet at quarter-wave (λ/4) distance from a con-
ductive ground plane in order to cancel the incident and
reflected wave.10 A Jaumann absorber can increase the band-
width by loading more than two equally spaced reflective
sheets and a conductive ground plane, which is a multilay-
ered Salisbury absorber.11 A Dallenbach absorber can be
realized by destructive interference of the waves reflected
from the first and second interfaces.12
Recently, a metamaterial (MM) absorber was proposed
by a periodic split-ring resonator array where effective per-
mittivity and permeability can be artificially controlled at a
resonant frequency.13 Because MM absorbers can achieve
high absorptivity with much thinner thickness than λ/4, they
have been proposed in various EM spectrum such as
infrared,14 optical,15 terahertz,16 millimeter-wave,17 and
microwave18 bands for sensing, imaging, energy harvesting,
and stealth applications. For a low-frequency MM absorber,
the unit cell size is an important factor because of a periodic
configuration of a MM. Therefore, various unit cell geome-
try for miniaturization has been proposed in a low fre-
quency.19-23 For instance, a snake-shape unit cell is
proposed to design MM absorbers at 2 GHz and 400 MHz.19
A needlepoint-shape MM unit cell is designed using a mag-
netic material at 400 MHz.20 A planar sandwiched metal-
dielectric-metal unit cell is proposed to minimize the MM
unit cell size at 400 MHz.21 The unit cell size of the MM
absorber is reduced by loading lumped capacitors and verti-
cal interconnects at 102 MHz.22 The MM unit cell is minia-
turized by a metallic ring on the top layer and meander line
on the bottom layer in a multilayer.23
In this paper, we proposed a miniaturized MM absorber
unit cell using 3-dimensional (3D) printing technology.
Because it does not require any lumped element, composite/
© 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 1
2 KIM ET AL.
F I G U R E 1 Evolutionary process of the unit cell design. A, Initial Jerusalem Cross. B, Intermediate two-block design. C, Proposed Swastika
design. D, Simulated S-parameters of three unit cell design [Color figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
magnetic materials, and multilayer process, the proposed
MM absorber can be easily fabricated with low cost. The
unit cell of the proposed MM absorber is motivated from a
swastika symbol to minimize the footprint size. For further
miniaturization, the unit cell is 3D printed by stacking two
blocks. The conductive top patterns are realized by painting
with a silver ink. The proposed MM absorber consists of
2 × 4 unit cell array which is loaded in the rectangular wave-
guide. Its performance is numerically and experimentally
demonstrated in this paper.
2 | DESIGN A N D A N A L Y SI S OF T H E
MM ABSORBER
Figure 1 shows the steps of how the proposed unit cell is
designed. As illustrated in Figure 1A, the proposed unit cell
design is motivated by a conventional Jerusalem Cross
design. The MM absorber is designed based on inductive/
capacitive (LC) resonance and its resonant frequency (f ) is
given by
1
f= pffiffiffiffiffiffi ,
2π LC
It is well known that the effective inductance is increased
and the resonant frequency is decreased as the length of the
cross increases. At the fixed physical unit cell size, the lower
resonant frequency causes the miniaturization effect on the
unit cell size. Therefore, Figure 1B pictures that the second
stage block is stacked on the first stage block to increase in
the length of the cross while keeping the physical size.
Finally, the meander lines are employed on the first and sec-
ond stage blocks to increase the length of the cross more, as
shown in Figure 1C. The simulated S-parameters of three
designs are plotted in Figure 1D. The resonant frequencies
of the initial Jerusalem Cross, intermediate two-block, and
proposed Swastika design are 5.1, 3.7, and 1.9 GHz,
respectively.
Figure 2 illustrates the layout of the unit cell of the pro-
posed MM absorber. Swastika symbol is designed to mini-
mize the size of the unit cell and it is printed on two-layered
structure. The conductive pattern on the second stage block
is meander-lined. Because the first stage block is larger than
the second stage block, the conductive pattern from the sec-
ond stage block is extended by patterning the conductive
pattern on the top of the first stage block. The completely
covered ground plane is patterned on the bottom of the first
stage block.
The first stage block size (W1 × W1 × H1) is
24 × 24 × 2 mm, and the second stage block size
(W2 × W2 × H2) is 12 × 12 × 4 mm. In this work, two blocks
ð1Þ are built by a 3D printer and the conductive patterns are
painted by silver epoxy. In addition, the protruded patterns
with H3 = 0.5 mm are marked on the first and second stage
blocks for silver painting of conductive patterns.
The proposed MM absorber is designed with the rectangu-
lar waveguide as shown in Figure 3. Because we used
430WCAS waveguide operating 1.7 to 2.6 GHz in this work,
the open aperture size of the waveguide is 105.9 × 160.5 mm.
KIM ET AL. 3

F I G U R E 2 Layout of the unit cell of the proposed MM absorber. A, Top view (W1 = 24 mm, W2 = 12 mm, W3 = 1.2 mm, L2 = 5.2 mm,
L3 = 10 mm, L4 = 6 mm, a = 2.8 mm, b = 2.4 mm, c = 5.2 mm, d = 4 mm, and L1 = a + b + a + c + a + d + W3 + H3 = 20 mm). B, Side view
(H1 = 2 mm, H2 = 4 mm, H3 = 0.5 mm). C, Bird view [Color figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]

FIGURE 3 Proposed MM absorber with the rectangular waveguide [Color figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]

Therefore, 2 × 4 unit cells are loaded on the MM absorber and
its overall size is 105.9 × 160.5 mm. ANSYS high-frequency
structure simulator is used for electromagnetic simulation. In
this work, the 3D printed polylactic acid (PLA) is used for a
dielectric material. Its dielectric constant and loss tangent are
2 and 0.07, respectively. The conductivity of silver patterns is
6.1 × 107 S per meter.
As we explained, the MM absorber is designed based on
inductive/capacitive (LC) resonance and its resonant fre-
quency (f ) is given by
1
f= pffiffiffiffiffiffi : ð1Þ
2π LC
Because the effective inductance is dependent on the con-
ductive pattern on the top plane, the longer length of the Swas-
tika symbol results in higher inductance and lower resonant
frequency. Therefore, the meander line and two-layered struc-
tures can miniaturize the footprint size of the unit cell. To
investigate the effect of design parameters, S-parameters are
simulated at different geometrical parameters as shown in
Figure 4. To investigate the effect of design parameters,
S-parameters are simulated at different geometrical parameters
using the periodic boundary condition, as shown in Figure 4.
As shown in Figure 4A, when the length (L4) of the Swastika
symbol on the second stage block is increased from 1 to 6 mm,
a resonant frequency is decreased from 2.14 to 1.9 GHz
because of higher inductance. Figure 4B shows the simulated
S-parameter of the proposed MM absorber at different height
(H2) of the second stage block. When H2 is increased from 1 to
5 mm, the resonant frequency varies from 2.14 to 1.82 GHz,
also decreasing by higher inductance. The final geometrical
parameters of the conductive pattern on the first stage block are
4 KIM ET AL.

F I G U R E 4 Simulated S-parameters of the proposed MM absorber at (A) different length (L4) of the Swastika symbol on the second stage block
and (B) different height (H2) of the second stage block [Color figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]

F I G U R E 5 Simulated S-parameters of the proposed absorber at different (A) polarization angle under normal incidence, and incidence angle
under (B) oblique TE and (C) TM incidence [Color figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]

given as W3 = 1.2 mm, L1 = 20 mm, L2 = 5.2 mm, d = 4 mm. Therefore, it is expected to have a resonant fre-
L3 = 10 mm, and L4 = 6 mm. In addition, the geometrical quency at 1.9 GHz and 99% absorptivity.
parameters of the conductive pattern on the second stage block Figure 5 shows the simulated S-parameters of the pro-
are given as a = 2.8 mm, b = 2.4 mm, c = 5.2 mm, and posed absorber using the periodic boundary condition, at
KIM ET AL. 5

F I G U R E 6 Simulated field distributions at 1.9 GHz. A, Incident E-field on the waveport. B, Magnitude of E-field on the absorber. C, Electric
current density in the absorber [Color figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]

F I G U R E 7 Pictures of the fabricated sample. A, Overall MM absorber prototype. B, Magnified unit cell [Color figure can be viewed at
wileyonlinelibrary.com]

different polarization and incidence angles. As shown in
Figure 5A, when the polarization angle varies from 0 to 70 ,
the frequency response is constant. In Figure 5B, when the
incidence angle varies from 0 to 30 under oblique TE inci-
dence, the absorption frequency is not changed. The fre-
quency is increased and return loss is decreased from 40 .
For instance, the absorption frequency is increased from
1.92 to 1.95 GHz and the return loss is decreased from 16.7
to 7.3 dB when the incidence angle is changed from 30 to
40 , respectively. The frequency response under oblique TM
incidence is more sensitive to the incidence angle as shown
in Figure 5C. The absorption frequency is slightly changed
from 0 to 30 of the incidence angle, but the change
becomes larger from 40 . For instance, the absorption fre-
quency is increased from 1.97 to 2.01 GHz and the return
loss is decreased from 19.2 to 12.6 dB when the incidence
angle is increased from 40 to 70 , respectively.
Figure 6 shows the electric field (E-field) and current
distribution of the MM absorber under the waveguide setup
at 1.9 GHz to see LC resonance. Figure 6A shows the
6 KIM ET AL.

x-polarized incident E-field distribution on the waveport
where TE mode excitation is observed.24 When the
x-polarized TE mode is excited, the magnitude of the E-field
distribution is plotted on the top of the MM absorber. As
shown in Figure 6B, the strong electric response from the
top of the first block is observed. Figure 6C shows the side
view of the electric current distribution of the MM absorber
where the antiparallel current distribution is observed from
top of the second block and bottom of the first and second
blocks and it contributes the magnetic response.
3 | FABR ICA TIO N AND
MEASUREMENT RESULTS
The designed MM absorber is fabricated to experimentally
demonstrate its performance. Figure 7A,B shows the pic-
tures of the fabricated overall prototype and magnified unit
cell, respectively. The PLA dielectric material is built by the
Ultimaker2 3D printer. The conductive pattern is painted by
ECLOAT silver ink. Protruded area makes it easy to paint,
so it is easily painted. The bottom ground is realized using a
copper tape.
The fabricated MM absorber is inserted between two
WR-430WCAS waveguides and its S-parameter is measured
using Anritsu MS2038C network analyzer. Figure 8 shows
the simulated and measured absorptivity of the proposed
MM absorber. The measured absorptivity is 92% at
1.91 GHz while the simulated absorptivity is 99% at
1.9 GHz. The slight difference is due to 3D printing toler-
ance during fabrication. In Table 1, the performance of the
proposed MM absorber is compared with one of the other
MM absorbers. Most MM absorber has been proposed in a
few GHz band, especially X-band for radar cross
section reduction.28 It is more difficult to realize MM
absorbers in a lower frequency than a higher frequency
because of lower dielectric loss and larger physical size. In
addition, the bandwidth is narrower in a lower frequency
because of higher Q factor. Nevertheless, the proposed MM
absorber shows miniaturized unit cell size compare with
other MM absorber because of stacking blocks and swastika
symbol. In addition, most MM absorbers have been fabri-
cated using PCB etching process. However, because the pro-
posed MM absorber is fabricated using 3D printing process,
the cheap and fast manufacturing becomes the additional
advantage.

4 | CONCLUSION

In this paper, low-cost and miniaturized 3D printed MM

F I G U R E 8 Simulated and measured absorptivity of the proposed
MM absorber [Color figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
absorber is proposed. Because of a Swastika symbol and
two-layered structure, the footprint size of the proposed MM
unit cell is miniaturized to 24 × 24 mm which corresponds
to 0.15 × 0.15 λ at 1.9 GHz. In addition, the 3D printing
technology enables the two-layered structure and low-cost
fabrication. The performance of the proposed absorber is
successfully demonstrated from numerical and experimental
results. The simulated and measured absorptivity are 99%
and 92%, respectively. The 3D printing technology can be
potentially used for more complicated MM structures with
lower cost and more design flexibility.

TABLE 1 Performance comparison table of the proposed MM absorber with other MM absorbers

Unit cell size

Ref. Frequency (GHz) Bandwidth (%) Fabrication technique
Electrical size (λg × λg) Physical size (mm × mm)
17
4.06 2 0.271 × 0.271 10 × 10 PCB
25
6.16 4 0.439 × 0.439 10.2 × 10.2 PCB
26
5.18 20 0.469 × 0.469 20 × 20 3D printing
18
9.18 15 0.315 × 0.315 5×5 PCB
19
2 9 0.124 × 0.124 12.2 × 12.2 PCB
27
4 3 0.362 × 0.362 13.6 × 13.6 PCB
This work 1.9 5 0.216 × 0.216 24 × 24 3D printing
KIM ET AL.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This research was supported by the Chung-Ang University
Research Grants in 2018 and the National Research Founda-
tion of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government
(MSIP) (No. 2017R1A2B3003856).
O R C ID
Saptarshi Ghosh https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4978-1616
Sungjoon Lim https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5049-9300
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How to cite this article: Kim M, Jeong H, Lim D,
Ghosh S, Lim S. Low-cost and miniaturized
metamaterial absorber using 3D printed swastika sym-
bol. Microw Opt Technol Lett. 2019;1–7. https://doi.
org/10.1002/mop.32221