Open AccessExperimental Demonstration of Printed Graphene Nano-flakes Enabled Flexible and Conformable Wideband Radar Absorbers
Author(s) -
Xianjun Huang,
Kewen Pan,
Zhirun Hu
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
scientific reports
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.24
H-Index - 213
ISSN - 2045-2322
DOI - 10.1038/srep38197
Subject(s) - conformable matrix , graphene , materials science , wideband , optoelectronics , bandwidth (computing) , radar , electrical conductor , optics , composite material , nanotechnology , computer science , telecommunications , physics
In this work, we have designed, fabricated and experimentally characterized a printed graphene nano-flakes enabled flexible and conformable wideband radar absorber. The absorber covers both X (8–12 GHz) and Ku (12–18 GHz) bands and is printed on flexible substrate using graphene nano-flakes conductive ink through stencil printing method. The measured results show that an effective absorption (above 90%) bandwidth spans from 10.4 GHz to 19.7 GHz, namely a 62% fraction bandwidth, with only 2 mm thickness. The flexibility of the printed graphene nano-flakes enables the absorber conformably bending and attaching to a metal cylinder. The radar cross section (RCS) of the cylinder with and without absorber attachment has been compared and excellent absorption has been obtained. Only 3.6% bandwidth reduction has been observed comparing to that of un-bended absorber. This work has demonstrated unambiguously that printed graphene can provide flexible and conformable wideband radar absorption, which extends the graphene’s application to practical RCS reductions.