Recent Progress in Characteristic Mode Analysis
and Design of Lossy Structures
Zicheng Song
Center for Composite Materials and School of Information Science and
Structures
Harbin Institute of Technology ShanghaiTech University
Harbin, China
songzc@hit.edu.cn linfh@shanghaitech.edu.cn
Abstract—This paper reviews the recent progress of using
characteristic mode analysis (CMA) for the design and
optimization of lossy structures, with a focus on the strategies of
using CMA for metabsorbers. The new perspective and
2022 IEEE 10th Asia-Pacific Conference on Antennas and Propagation (APCAP) | 978-1-6654-8954-6/22/$31.00 ©2022 IEEE | DOI: 10.1109/APCAP56600.2022.10068941
performance of the metabsorber brought by the introduction of
CMA are addressed.
Keywords—Characteristic mode analysis, metasurface,
absorber, wideband, low profile.
I. INTRODUCTION
Metasurfaces have been proved useful for controlling
electromagnetic waves in applications including antennas,
absorbers and scatters. Method wise, the theory of
characteristic mode (TCM) for perfect conducting bodies has
been successfully and widely applied in the analysis and
design of the metasurface antennas in a way that guides the
modal analysis, synthesis, manipulation and excitation [1–3].
Due to the similar structure with radiation metasurface, the
metabsorber designed to absorb incidence electromagnetic
waves also have the potential to be improved under the
guidance of the modal concept.
Optimization method and theoretical analysis method
have been providing effective method to design and analysis
of metabsorber. Topology optimization method have greatly
facilitated the design of metabsorber with high performance
without expert intervention. However, the resultant structures
are usually complicated, difficult to fabricate, and time and
computing power consuming. In addition, equivalent circuit
method and loss field analysis are effective in analyzing
mechanism, but hardly provide feedback on the design of
metabsorber. Also, above methods are limited by the difficulty
on analyzing irregular structure, which hinders the
understanding of the wideband mechanisms and further
improvement.
Recently, the classical TCM for lossless material has been
introduced into analysis and design of metabsorber adopting
the approximate methods, thus proposing a series of ultra-
wideband structures that bringing new perspectives on
wideband mechanisms and wideband optimization strategies.
On the other hand, TCM is employed to synthesize the
omnidirectional radiation pattern to improve the angle
stability through dissipation tailoring. As reviewed below,
insights gained through CMA of perfect conducting
counterparts suggest different strategies to guide the
performance improvement of lossy structures, especially for
absorption bandwidth and angular stability of metabsorbers.
II. WIDEBAND DESIGN OF METABSORBER USING CMA
The basic motivation of performing CMA for the lossless
counterparts of lossy metabsorber is the fast availability and
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Feng Han Lin Jiaqi Zhu
Center for Composite Materials and
Technology Structures
Harbin Institute of Technology
Shanghai, China Harbin, China
zhujq@hit.edu.cn
well-stablished commercial solvers for perfect conducting
bodies. One of the common objectives and challenges in
absorber designs are to achieve low profile and wideband
absorption simultaneously. Table I summarizes recent
developments of wideband metabsorbers with CMA, based on
which the advantages of using CMA are summarized in the
following, including
· Clear physical insights of wideband modal behavior
· Efficient design of infinite array by finite elements
· Wideband performance design guidance from physics
· Physic-oriented parameters for seeking effective
modes under arbitrary excitation
· Adopt the metasurface with arbitrary shapes
· Efficient metabsorber bandwidth optimization.
Metabsorbers can be divided into resistor-loaded
metabsorbers and resistive-sheets-loaded metabsorbers,
where the former loads lumped resistors and the latter uses
conductive ink and films for example. The design strategy of
using of CMA are different, as described in detail as follows.
A. Resistor-Loaded Metabsorbers
With the help of the characteristic mode parameters modal
significance (MS) with modal radiation field and modal
current, resistor-loaded metabsorbers are improved the
absorption bandwidth. The MS and corresponding modal
radiation field is used to find effective modes of structure at
specific incidence. Also modal current and MS bandwidth of
effective modes are used to determine the position and value
of resistor to obtain wideband absorption performance.
In [4], CMA was introduced to metabsorber for
determining the position and value of the lumped resistors on
the resonator, which consists of miniaturized meander line and
lumped resistor. Based on MS and the corresponding modal
radiation field, effective modes of the structure under normal
incidence are found. Thereby, the positions of resistors can be
determined through the peak positions of effective modal
currents. And the value of resistors can be designed through
the MS of effective modes over 0.707, hence leading to the
wideband absorption of over 90% in the range of 3.1–10 GHz
with relative bandwidth of 105.3%. By employing the CMA,
the wideband operation mechanism has been clearly revealed,
that is, the modal bandwidth of the structure is expanded with
the introduction of resistors.
In addition to employing conventional one resistor at the
location of modal surface current maximum, double resistors
were inserted on each side of the square loop to absorb more
 TABLE I
SUMMARY OF WIDEBAND METABSORBER USING CHARACTERISTIC MODE ANALYSIS

Metabsorber Relative bandwidth,

Ref Geometry of Metabsorber1 dimensions Absolute bandwidth, Technical Features
λL×λL×λL2 Angular Stability
1.MS and modal radiation pattern are used to
find effective modes
105.3%,
2.Modal manipulation for selecting the position
[4] 0.129×0.129×0.103 6.9GHz,
and value of resistors
90% absorption TM<30° TE<30°
3.Clear modal broaden mechanism by adding
resistance.

125.7%, 1. Modal manipulation for selecting the position

[5] 0.096×0.096×0.086 4.88GHz, and value of resistors
90% absorption TM<45° TE<15° 2.Wideband and low profile

1. Modal manipulation for selecting the position

126.8%, and value of resistors
[6] 0.11×0.11×0.088 11.14GHz, 2.Effective method for replace resistors with
90% absorption TM<60° TE<40° resistive film.
3. Wideband and low profile.
1.MS and reflection coefficient are used to
127.2%, reveal the absorber with one mode
[7] 0.107×0.107×0.098 3.5GHz, 2.Inspire design of absorber with multiple
Not report modes
3.Wideband and low profile.
1.New method to apply original TCM for PEC
to analyze metabsorber using resistive sheet
147.6%, 2.First applied Σ|MWC|2 to find the absorption
[8] 0.33×0.33×0.117 31.05GHz, modes under specific excitation
80% absorption TM<40° TE <40° 3.Reasonable modal manipulation for wideband
continuous resonance by inserting resonators
4.Ultrawideband and low profile.

1.New method to improve coding initial setting

144.8%,
for wideband performance
[9] 0.35×0.35×0.125 31GHz,
2.Revealing wideband mechanism
80% absorption TM<60° TE<60°
3.Ultrawideband and low profile.

1
The resonators are arranged from left to right according the height.
2
λL is the wavelength in free space at the lowest operating frequency.

incident planewave in [5]. By adjusting the distance between
the resistors and their value, the MS over 0.707 bandwidth of
the effective modes has an obvious broaden, thereby leading
to 127.3% relative bandwidth. According to the CM
parameters MS, the structure parameters of the absorber can
be set for the wideband requirement.
Adopting the similar approach to the above two works ,
the absorber with a gear-like resonator is analyzed by TCM in
[6]. The MS result is used to find the resonance frequency
band, the modal radiation pattern is used to select effective
modes under normal incidence. Thereby the lumped resistors
are loaded at the effective mode current peak whose value is
further designed through wider MS bandwidth over 0.707.
Based on the relationship between surface resistance and
equivalent resistance, the lumped resistors can be replaced
with resistive film, providing a method to design metabsorbers
loaded resistive sheets.
B. Resistive-Sheets-Loaded Metabsorbers
In addition to MS, the characteristic mode parameter
modal weighting coefficient (MWC) or the reflection
coefficient were used to confirm the effective mode of
resistive-sheets-loaded metabsorbers under specific excitation,
providing effective method to understand and optimize
wideband performance of metabsorber.
By simultaneously using TCM and finite difference time
domain method (FDTD), a multimode absorber is proposed
for wideband in term of superposition of square loop
resonators [7]. The MS is used to find the modes of the
structure, and the reflection coefficient from FDTD is used to
find effective modes under excitation. Hence, a square loop
resonator was found to have a single-mode excited under
planewave normal incidence. By stacking three square loop
resonators of different sizes in one plane, a combination
multimode resonator is achieved. The proposed metabsorber
achieves wideband absorption in the range of 1.0–4.5 GHz
with relative bandwidth of 127.3%.
According to the similarity of metabsorber and its lossless
counterpart in terms of the electric field distribution and power,
a strategy is establish for analysis the resistive-sheets loaded
metabsorber using CMA in [8]. The material and boundary
approximate method is proposed for metabsorber and its
counterpart have similar modal behavior. With aid of the sum
of squares of MWC (Σ|MWC|2) corresponding to total power,
it is found that the resonance null between two continuous
resonances hinders wideband absorption under normal

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incidence. Thereby, a CMA-based bandwidth improvement
strategy is proposed by inserting an additional resonator that
resonates at the resonance null frequency, leading to a
wideband continuous resonance. As a result, a dual-band
metabsorber is optimized to wideband metabsorber covering
5.51–36.56 GHz with relative bandwidth of 147.6%.
Benefiting from the applicability of CMA to the structure
with arbitrary shape, coding metabsorbers with complex
resonator have also been analyzed in [9]. Using the material
and boundary approximation method, the bilateral coding
metabsorber is found to generate continuous mode resonance,
according to Σ|MWC|2 and corresponding far-field and surface
current distribution. Compared with single-layered design, the
wideband performance of the bilateral design are
quantitatively analyzed using CM parameters, providing
physics-in-depth general approach to the wideband coding
design setting.
III. WIDE ANGULAR DESIGN OF METABSORBER USING CMA
Designing metabsorbers simultaneously with low-profile
and full angular stability is a challenge. Recently, a near-
omnidirectional absorber is proposed by using the CMA [10].
In this approach, MS is used to measure the bandwidth of each
mode and modal radiation patterns are used to analyze
radiation direction. By properly tuning the parameters of the
lossless structure, the first three characteristic modes of the
structure operate on an overlapped and wide bandwidth, and
the synthesized pattern by the characteristic patterns covering
the upper half-space. In addition, by replacing the lossless
sheet of the structure with a resistive film, the dissipation
tailoring is performed for the impedance matching with the air.
Hence leads to absorption of structure for TM and TE
polarizations of approximately 90% can be, respectively, up
to incident angles of 82° and 45° in the frequency band of 1.9-
4.2GHz
IV. CONCLUSION
The introduction of characteristic mode analysis enriches
the analysis method for the lossy structure, especially for the
metabsorber. It allows us to analyze the operation principle of
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metabsorber with a new perspective, in terms of physic-
oriented characteristic mode parameters and corresponding
field. Inspired by the modal analysis, new oriented strategies
are generated for bandwidth and angular stability
improvement of metabsorbers by modal manipulating,
thereby providing new solution for high-performance
absorbing material.
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