Hybrid cubic-chessboard metasurfaces for wideband angle-independent diffusive scattering and enhanced stealth
Because of the shortcomings associated with their scattering patterns, both the chessboard and cubic phased metasurfaces show non-perfect diffusion and hence sub-optimal radar cross section reduction (RCSR) properties. This paper presents a novel and powerful hybrid RCSR design approach for diffusive scattering by combining the unique attributes of cubic phase and chessboard phase profiles. The hybrid phase distribution is achieved by simultaneously imposing two distinct phase profiles (chessboard and cubic) on the hybrid metasurface area with the aid of geometric phase theory to further enhance the diffusive scattering and RCSR. It is shown in this paper that through the integration of cubic and chessboard phase profiles, a metasurface with the hybrid phase mask successfully overcomes all the above issues and shortcomings related to the RCSR of both chessboard and cubic metasurfaces. In addition, the proposed design leverages the unique scattering properties offered by these distinct phase profiles to achieve enhanced stealth capabilities over wide frequency ranges and for large incidence angles. Simulation and measurement results show that the designed hybrid metasurfaces using the proposed strategy achieved RCSR and low-level diffused scattering patterns from 12 – 28 GHz (80%) for normal incidence of a far-field CP radar plane wave. The hybrid metasurface show a stable angular diffusion and RCSR performance when the azimuthal and elevation incidence angles are in the range of 0o → ±75o which is wider than other designs in the literature. Therefore, this work can make objects significantly less detectable in complex radar environments when enhanced stealth is required.
Funding
Anisotropic Microwave/Terahertz Metamaterials for Satellite Applications (ANISAT)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
Find out more...Newton International Fellowship (NIF\R1\222093)
State Key Laboratory of Millimeter Waves (K202317)
History
School
- Mechanical, Electrical and Manufacturing Engineering
Published in
Optics ExpressVolume
31Issue
24Pages
39433-39446Publisher
Optica Publishing GroupVersion
- VoR (Version of Record)
Rights holder
© Optica Publishing GroupPublisher statement
Published by Optica Publishing Group under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.Acceptance date
2023-10-26Publication date
2023-11-06Copyright date
2023eISSN
1094-4087Publisher version
Language
- en