Weather-Manipulated Smart Broadband Electromagnetic Metamaterials

Kai Lun Zhang, Xiao Dong Cheng, Ya Jing Zhang, Mingji Chen, Haosen Chen, Yazheng Yang, Wei Li Song*, Daining Fang

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

53 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Smart materials and structures with tunable electromagnetic (EM) properties are highly demanded for active environmental sensitive systems. As polar molecules in the environment, in this work, water and ice are utilized as wetting and freezing conditions to manipulate the electromagnetic response behaviors in a graphene-based composite material, aiming to achieve a smart weather-manipulated EM metamaterial. Owing to the introduced polar water and ice phase in the self-assembled porous electromagnetic attenuating networks, energy consumption of EM waves is significantly altered via multiple scattering of polar induced interfaces. In frozen conditions, a wide absorption band (2-18 GHz) with efficient absorption (reflection loss < -10 dB) has been obtained. Additionally, the mechanical feature of the as-assembled metamaterials could also be manipulated via altering the weather conditions in terms of changing the phase of the introduced water. Interestingly, the mechanical properties could be massively changed while the broadband absorption capability has rarely been impacted. Implication of the results highlights an efficient method for fabricating smart EM metamaterials that are capable of being manipulated by the environment.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)40815-40823
Number of pages9
JournalACS applied materials & interfaces
Volume10
Issue number47
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 28 Nov 2018

Keywords

  • electromagnetic
  • metamaterials
  • microwave absorption
  • smart materials
  • weather manipulation

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