IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL.
16, 2017
Analysis and Design of Multilayered Broadband
Radar Absorbing Metamaterial Using the 3-D
Printing Technology-Based Method
Ding Zhou, Xiaozhong Huang, and Zuojuan Du
Abstract—A multilayered and broadband radar absorbing
metamaterial (RAMM) with different structures designed in each
of the layers was prepared using the selected laser sintering (SLS)
method. A powder mixture consisting of nylon and carbonyl iron
powder can be solidified by SLS to form any designed shape. The
method would be helpful to make metamaterial. The RAMM was
designed using Computer Simulation Technology Microwave Stu-
dio software to simulate its absorption properties. The reflectivity
of the RAMM was calculated using transmission line theory. It was
found that the type of designing changed the surface structure of
a conventional slab and increased the bandwidth. The theoretical,
simulated, and experimental results all showed that the RAMM
had reflectivity below −10 dB in the range from 8 to 18 GHz.
We thought the RAMM had an impedance-tapered structure. The
main loss was found to occur in the central area of the bottom layer,
which simply corresponded to the surface layer.
Index Terms—3-D printing technology, absorption property,
radar absorbing metamaterial (RAMM).
I. INTRODUCTION
ADAR-ABSORBING materials (RAMs), which form the
R basis of stealth technology, consist of two major material
types: stealth material coatings [1] and structural stealth mate-
rials [2], [3]. Researchers engaged in the development of new
radar absorbing materials [4] generally use composite materials
[5], surface matching designs [6], [7], or multilayered struc-
tures [8], [9]. However, because of the limitations in terms of
the complex permeabilities of iron, cobalt, nickel, ferrites, and
other metal materials, as well as the limitations in the intrin-
sic complex permittivity of materials such as alumina, stealth
material research based on the development of the potential
properties of these materials has reached a bottleneck.
Microwave metamaterials are usually defined as a class in
artificial media with unusual properties not found in nature,
which are composed of periodic arrays of subwavelength metal-
lic elements [10]. Studies on microwave metamaterial absorber
Manuscript received September 21, 2015; revised February 3, 2016 and March
28, 2016; accepted April 24, 2016. Date of publication April 29, 2016; date of
current version February 20, 2017.
Z. Ding is with the Institute of Physical and Electronic, Cen-
tral South University, Changsha 0086-410012, China (e-mail: zhouding123@
aliyun.com).
H. Xiaozhong and Z. Du are with the Institute of Aeronautics and As-
tronautics, Central South University, Changsha 0086-410012, China (e-mail:
huangxzh@csu.edu.cn; 47077391@qq.com).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this letter are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/LAWP.2016.2560904
1536-1225 © 2016 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
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133
are now a potential way to find thinner and lighter radar-
absorbing materials [11]–[16]. These metamaterial absorbers
have high absorption properties primarily through dielectric
loss and impedance matching at resonance. The absorption fre-
quency range and amplitude can be tuned easily by adjusting the
shape, size, thickness, and properties of metallic structure and
dielectric spacer [17]. Since the absorptivity of metamaterial
absorber was caused by resonance, the bandwidth of absorp-
tivity is quite narrow. To broaden the absorption band, various
techniques have been proposed such as clustering multiple res-
onating structures in each unit cell [18], introducing a mag-
netic medium to increase magnetic resonance [19], and loading
lumped elements [20], [21]. However, since these structures
were quite small and complex, they were usually difficult to
produce, restricting the evolution of them.
A structure similar to ours has been reported by Li et al. [22].
Compared to their work, we used a different material [carbonyl
iron powder (CIP)] to prepare the sample and proposed a nu-
merical calculation method to prove the result. Specially, a new
fabrication method is proposed that enables the multilayer and
broadband radar-absorbing metamaterials (RAMMs) to be pre-
pared using the selected laser sintering (SLS) method. Using the
proposed method, we can create samples in any shapes, which
means the study on RAMMs can be conducted quickly and
easily. The method is particularly suitable for preparing a com-
plex and tiny structure, and our structure is quite smaller than
the structure designed by Li et al. [22]. However, the resulting
materials are weak in mechanical strength. A post-processing
technique is required to overcome this problem before applying.
II. SLS METHOD FOR PREPARING RAM
The SLS method is a technology that is used in direct rapid
fabrication [23]. Powders such as nylon or metals can be so-
lidified into any desired shape by fusing the powders from the
bottom layer up to the top layer. This technology is thus highly
suitable for producing multilayer RAMMs. Two steps are re-
quired to produce one solidified layer, involving laying out the
powder layer, and then sintering the zone required. Performing
these two steps repeatedly enables production of the complete
sample. In this letter, we used a powder mixture that consisted of
nylon (type FS3200PA) and CIP, which contained a 70% volume
fraction of CIP. Powders used in SLS must meet two important
requirements: The particles must be of a uniform size in the
134 IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 16, 2017

Fig. 2. Electromagnetic parameters of the powder mixture.

Fig. 1. Partial enlarged photograph of the real sample made by SLS.

range between 20 and 150 μm and must also be spherical. Other-

wise, flaws may appear when laying out the powder. Therefore,
the CIP was first milled into particles of approximately 120 μm
in order to get close to the size as the nylon particles. Before
producing fine samples, three important process conditions have
to be established: the preheating temperature, the single layer
thickness, and the laser power. Inappropriate conditions would
lead to warpage or charring of the products. After a series of ex-
periments were conducted, a preheating temperature of 130 °C,
Fig. 3. Geometry of the unit cell (mm): l1 = 5, l2 = 3.96, l3 = 2.34 and
a single layer thickness of 0.13 mm, and a laser power of 40 W d1 = 0.84, d2 = 0.88, d3 = 1.17.
were obtained as suitable process conditions. Then, the designed
model was imported into a computer connected to the 3-D print-
ing equipment. Fig. 1 shows the partial enlarged photograph of The reflectivity was calculated by the software using the finite
the real sample. element method. To obtain the ultimate goal of reflectivity below
−10 dB over the whole bandwidth from 8 to 18 GHz, we used
the optimizer in CST MWS by setting up l1 , l2 , and l3 and d1 , d2 ,
III. MODELING AND SIMULATION and d3 as shown in Fig. 3 as parameters. Finally, the optimizer
exported the appropriate value of each parameter.
Computer Simulation Technology (CST) Microwave Studio
(MWS) software was used in this letter to simulate the RAMM. IV. THEORETICAL ANALYSIS
A perfect electric conductor (PEC) was placed at the bottom of
the model to prevent transmission, which enabled the absorp- The governing equations for a multilayered absorber can be
tion properties to be characterized based on reflection alone. obtained by the transmission line method. The reflection can be
Frequency selective surface-unit cell template was set up in calculated using (1)
CST MWS, which automatically applied unit cell boundary  0 
Z − 1
conditions in the x- and y-directions, and Floquet port excita- R = 20 lg  in 
0 + 1 (1)
Zin
tions were set up in the positive z-direction. The electromag-
netic parameters (complex permittivity and complex permeabil- i
i−1 Zin + Zi tanh(γi di )
ity) of the powder mixture were measured using the transmis- Zin = Zi i tanh(γ d )
(2)
Zi + Zin i i
sion/reflection method by testing coaxial samples in a vector  √
network analyzer, and the results are shown in Fig. 2. We im- where ZN +1 = 0, Zi = μr,i /εr,i , and γi = 2πjf εr,i μr,i /c.
ported the electromagnetic parameters of the powder mixture to In (2), Zi is the characteristic impedance, and γi is the prop-
CST MWS to define the material properties of the model. One agation constant. Both of these parameters are functions of the
unit of the model is shown in Fig. 3. permittivity (εr ) and permeability (μr ) of the medium through

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ZHOU et al.: ANALYSIS AND DESIGN OF MULTILAYERED BROADBAND RADAR ABSORBING METAMATERIAL 135

which the electromagnetic wave travels. Here, c is the speed

i−1
of light in air. The input impedance Zin can be calculated
recursively from the ith properties.
The model that we designed can be regarded as a three-
layered radar absorber. As shown in Fig. 3, the inner layer,
which is closed to the PEC, can be seen as a conventional
single-slab RAM. Because the SLS technology simply melted
the nylon powder and made it cohere with CIP, there was no
change in composition during the process of making the powder
into a solid. The electromagnetic parameters of the inner layer
were almost the same as those of the powder mixture shown in
Fig. 2. However, as shown in Fig. 3, we can see that the mid-
dle and surface layers were both arrays of squares in periodical
view. The side lengths of the two types of squares, l2 and l3 , were
3.96 and 2.34 mm, respectively. The length of the periodic cell
l1 was 5 mm in both the x- and y-directions. The surface layer
can be regarded as a slab consisting of solid and air. Therefore,
Fig. 4. Reflectivity results of RAMM from numerical calculations, simula-
we used the calculating method about the effective electromag- tions, and experiments.
netic parameters of honeycomb-structured absorbing materials
to characterize the surface layers. The effective electromagnetic
parameters of these kinds of structures can be calculated using
[24]
  
1 2 2
εeff = (1 − 2g)(1 − εr ) + (1 − 2g) (1 − εr ) + 4εr .
2
(3)
Here, g is the volume ratio of the solid part in a layer, and εr is
the permittivity of the solid. μeff can be obtained by replacing εr
with μr . For the surface layer, gsur = l3 2 /l1 2 = 0.219. Effective
electromagnetic parameters of the middle layer can be calculated
in the same way. For the middle layer, g is calculated based on
2
a change where gm id = ll 2 2 × a. Here, we multiply g by the
1
constant a (a = 1.2) as an amendment because the solid content
of the middle layer is more than 50%, which is not in full accord
with the honeycomb structure. After we obtained the effective
electromagnetic parameters of the middle and surface layers,
the reflectivity of the three-layered absorber can be calculated Fig. 5. Simulated reflectivity results of conventional slabs made by the same
material.
using (1) and (2). It must be declared that our theory is just in full
accord with the simulation when the cycle length is near 5 mm
and waveband of 8–18 GHz. When the cycle length is enlarged the simulated reflectivity results of the conventional slabs in
or reduced, g should be enlarged or reduced accordingly. We can different thickness using the same material.
simply imagine that when cycle length becomes a hundred times
bigger or more, g will be increased to nearly one (εeff = εr ).
Both the surface layer and the middle layer can be seen as media B. Analysis of Power Loss in Simulation
with a structure of a dot array. As the structure was smaller than For the conventional slab, loss occurred evenly in horizon-
the wavelength, it had little effect on microwave and g decreased tal because of symmetry of the structure. Fig. 6 shows the
to near zero (εeff = εair = 1). power loss density of the three-layered absorber at the fre-
quency of 10 GHz in simulation. The main loss was found
V. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION to occur in the central area of the bottom layer, which simply
corresponded to the surface layer. Therefore, we thought that
A. Result the surface and middle layers provided appropriate impedance
The reflectivity of the sample prepared by SLS was measured matching conditions where the full-wave energy was consumed
by using the NRL arch method [25]. The RAMM was found to mainly in the bottom layer. This situation can also be ex-
have reflectivity below −10 dB in the range from 8 to 18 GHz. plained via the multilayer absorber transmission line theory
The reflectivity results, including those from the numerical cal- using (2) in which Zin of the three layers (Zb ottom ≈ 150th Ω,
culations, simulations, and experiments, are compared in Fig. 4. Zm iddle ≈ 290th Ω, and Zsurface ≈ 360th Ω) were found to be-
We see that the three results were well matched. Fig. 5 shows come closer to Zair (377th Ω) step by step.

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136
Fig. 6. Simulated result of power loss density in one cell of the three-layered
absorber (vertical section 10 GHz).
VI. CONCLUSION
In this letter, we have proposed a three-layered radar-
absorbing structure. The sample has reflectivity below –10 dB
in the range from 8 to 18 GHz. The transmission line method for
multilayer absorbers and calculating method about the effective
electromagnetic parameters of honeycomb-structured absorbing
materials were used to demonstrate the validity of the results.
The loss model was simulated in CST software. The product was
prepared by a novel technology SLS, which enabled complex
and tiny structures to be made easily and quickly.
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