Simultaneous Control of Absorbing Frequency and Amplitude Using Graphene Capacitor and Active Frequency-Selective Surface

In this communication, we propose a tunable radar absorber based on the combination of a graphene capacitor with a varactor-loaded active frequency-selective surface (FSS). The absorbing amplitude and frequency can be independently controlled by changing the effective sheet resistance of graphene and the capacitance of the varactor through different bias voltages, respectively. We fabricated the designed absorber and measured its tunable reflectivity. The measured results indicate that the absorber can tune its absorbing frequency ranging from 3.53 to 7.05 GHz under normal incidence when changing bias voltages applied to the varactors from 0.5 to 10 V. By further varying the graphene resistance through the bias voltage, the absorbing amplitude at each absorbing frequency can be dynamically modulated. In addition, it is found that the absorber achieves polarization-insensitive characteristics due to the symmetrical design of the active FSS. The physical mechanism of this absorber is discussed by providing the equivalent transmission-line (TL) model.