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A multiband metamaterial absorber for GHz and THz simultaneously

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DOI: 10.1016/j.rinp.2021.104893

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 Results in Physics 30 (2021) 104893

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Results in Physics
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/rinp

A multiband metamaterial absorber for GHz and THz simultaneously

Zhiyou Luo , Shijun Ji *, Ji Zhao , Han Wu , Handa Dai
School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Jilin University, Changchun 130025, China

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Nowadays, more and more metamaterial absorbers (MMAs) are explored not only in the microwave band but
Cross-band also in terahertz band, but few studies concentrate on metamaterial absorbers which can work in cross-band, that
Metamaterial absorber to say, absorb gigahertz (GHz) and terahertz (THz) electromagnetic (EM) waves simultaneously. This paper
Multiband electromagnetic stealth
proposed a design concept of MMA which can realize the absorption in GHz-band and THz-band simultaneously,
Terahertz
Microwave
and designed a cross-band metamaterial absorber (CMMA). The proposed CMMA can achieve three absorption
Ultra-thin peaks in GHz-band and two absorption peaks in THz-band. The characteristic of simultaneous absorption to GHz
and THz waves render the CMMA widely used in multi-band electromagnetic stealth and electronic counter­
measures, and the superposition design concept provides a novel idea for designing cross-band absorber.

Introduction
Metamaterials are a kind of artificial periodic composite structures or
materials. Many electromagnetic (EM) properties not found in tradi­
tional materials can be attained by artificial structural design, that
caused by regulating interaction with EM waves [1,2]. Due to the
negative refractive index, negative permittivity and permeability char­
acteristics, the EM metamaterials are widely used in electromagnetic
stealth [3], radar antenna [4,5], sensors [6], lens [7], thermal imaging
[8], biological detection [9] and other fields. Because of the narrow
beam, good direction and strong reliability characteristics of millimeter
wave (30–300 GHz), it has been widely used in communication [10],
sensing [11] and imaging [12]. While the terahertz (THz) wave (0.3-
10THz) combines some properties of microwave and light waves [13], it
has been applied in detection imaging [14], THz communication [15]
and antenna [16].
Since Landy et al. [17] proposed the first metamaterial absorber
(MMA) with perfect absorption in 2008, the EM metamaterial absorbers
have been attracted increasing attention of researchers, many meta­
material absorbers have sprung up. The absorption band of the meta­
material absorbers is extended from microwave [18] to terahertz [19],
infrared [20], visible [21] and ultraviolet [22]. The function is also
developed from single-band to multi-band [23] and broad-band [24],
and such characteristics ultra-thin [25], polarization-insensitive [26],
wide-angle [27] absorption and adjustable [28] are infused into the
metamaterial absorbers.
Although MMAs with perfect absorption in independent bands have
been extensively studied, few researchers have turned their attention to
cross-band absorption. In recent years, some studies have focused on
how to achieve perfect absorption in GHz and THz. In 2014, Sabah et al.
[29] presented several MMAs with different surface resonant unit cells,
which achieved absorptivity over 90% in GHz and THz respectively. In
2015, Dincer et al. [30] designed a MMA based on the square ring
structure, which could achieve absorption at GHz and THz respectively
by changing the size and material of the unit cell. In 2018, Kurnia et al.
[31] proposed a filter whose top resonator was based on two hex­
agangular ring structures, and it realized several absorption peaks
greater than 90% in the band from 300 GHz to 300THz. In 2020,
Sequeira et al. [32] proposed three MMAs with different structures. One
structure realized broadband absorption in GHz-band, and the other two
realized single absorption peak in THz-band. In 2021, Barani et al. [33]
reported polymer composite films contained quasi-1D van der Waals
materials, which exhibit electromagnetic shielding in X-band GHz and
sub-THz frequency ranges.
As illustrated in Table 1, previous studies on simultaneous absorp­
tion in GHz and THz bands mainly focus on the designing of same or
different structures to achieve absorption in GHz and THz respectively,
or some researches’ working frequency is too low, which cannot reach
the application range in THz-band. This paper proposed a novel design
concept for the designing the cross-band metamaterial absorbers
(CMMA). On the basis of this design concept, a CMMA achieved multi-
band absorption in GHz- and THz-band has been designed. Section 2
introduced the concept and the structure and boundary setting of the
proposed CMMA. Section 3 expounded the theoretical basis of this

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: jishijun@jlu.edu.cn (S. Ji).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rinp.2021.104893
Received 20 August 2021; Received in revised form 25 September 2021; Accepted 5 October 2021
Available online 8 October 2021
2211-3797/© 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Z. Luo et al. Results in Physics 30 (2021) 104893

Table 1
The comparison of the proposed CMMA with related researches.
Reference Dimension Thickness Absorption Range Polarization Insensitivity Simultaneous Absorption

[29] GHz 26 × 26 mm 1.672 mm 10–12 GHz. ○ £

THz 360 × 360 μm 102 μm 0–1 THz
[30] GHz 36 × 36 mm 1.67 mm 4.5–6 GHz \ £
THz 500 × 500 μm 450.4 μm 0–1 THz ○

[31] Simultaneous 1 × 1 mm 1.01 mm 40–460 GHz ○ ○

[32] GHz \ 3.8–5.4 GHz \ £

THz 1 \ 7 μm 0.8–2.4 THz £
THz 1 \ 8.4 μm 1–4 THz £
[33] Simultaneous \ \ 8.2–12.4 GHz, 0.22–0.32 THz £ ○

Present Work 1.2 × 1.2 mm 337 μm 100–200 GHz, 1–2 THz ○ ○

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the cross-band absorption concept.

concept. Section 4 mainly analyzed the calculation results of absorption,

electromagnetic response and absorption characteristics. And its ab­
sorption mechanism has been explained by electromagnetic resonance.
Section 5 summarizes the paper.
Concept and structure
Recently, researches on MMAs achieved absorption in GHz-band or
THz-band has been widespread. On this basis, this paper proposed a
novel design concept, which can achieve the cross-band absorption of
EM wave in different frequency bands by superposing the individual
absorption structure. As illustrated in Fig. 1, higher frequency the EM
wave is, greater energy consumes in dielectric. The structure absorbed
high frequency EM wave is superimposed on the structure absorbed low
frequency EM wave, and call them top structure (TS) and bottom
structure (BS) respectively. The high frequency EM wave will be
completely absorbed by TS and cannot be transmitted to BS, while the
low frequency EM wave cannot generate strong EM resonance in TS due
to the mismatch of impedance. The energy is partially absorbed by TS,
and most of the remaining energy is transmitted to BS, which is
consumed completely by the strong EM resonance occurred in BS.
Therefore, both high and low frequency EM waves are absorbed by
corresponding metamaterial absorber structure respectively. The ab­
sorption of high frequency EM wave almost can’t be affected by BS, and
the major influence is caused by the incomplete periodic array of the top
resonator. While the absorptivity of low frequency EM wave is greatly
disturbed by TS. On basis of this design concept, two individual MMAs
achieved the absorption at low frequency and high frequency have been
designed respectively, then TS is superposed on BS to achieve the
simultaneous absorption of both high and low frequency band.
According to the proposed design concept, a CMMA achieve the
Fig. 2. The electric dispersion of the FR-4 in 0–200 GHz.
simultaneous absorption of both GHz and THz is designed. As shown in
Fig. 3, the proposed CMMA is mainly composed of GHz unit cell and THz
unit cell. Both the GHz and THz unit cells are three-layer structures, and
the top resonators are hollowed-out cross structure. The top resonator
and grounding layer of the GHz unit cell is made of copper, which
conductivity is σ = 5.8 × 107 S/m. While that of the THz unit cell is made
of gold, which conductivity is σ = 4.56 × 107 S/m. The dielectric layer of
the GHz unit cell is filled of FR-4, which permittivity is ε = 4.3, tangent
loss angle is tan δ = 0.025. Because of the loss of dielectric materials, the
frequency-dependent complex permittivity can be expressed by ε(ω) =
ε(ω)′ -iε(ω)′′ , and the tangent loss angle tan[δe(ω)] = ε(ω)′ /ε(ω)′′ . Ac­
cording to the high order medium dispersion model as illustrated in
Fig. 2, as the increasing frequency, the real part of permittivity of FR-4
ε(ω)′ decreases, while the imaginary part ε(ω)′′ and tangent loss angle
tan[δe(ω)] increase. And all of them tend to be constant with the
increasing frequency. The dielectric layer of the THz unit cell is filled of
Polyimide (PI), which permittivity is ε = 3, and tangent loss angle is tan
δ = 0.06. Because the function of blocking THz wave transmission can be
replaced by the top resonator of the GHz unit cell, the THz unit cell with
removing grounding layer is superposed on the GHz unit cell. The su­
perposed CMMA is a five-layer structure which consists of three metal
layers (Gold Layer, Copper Layer and Grounding Layer) and two
dielectric layers (FR-4 Layer and Polyimide Layer), and the specific
structure illustrated in Fig. 3(c).
The structural parameters of hollow-out cross are brought into focus,
which were the arm length lg and width wg of the hollow-out cross of
GHz unit cell, and the arm length lt and width wt of the hollow-out cross

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Z. Luo et al. Results in Physics 30 (2021) 104893

Fig. 3. (a) Structure diagram of the GHz unit cell; (b) Structure diagram of the THz unit cell; (c) Structure diagram of the proposed CMMA; (d) Boundary setting of
the CMMA in GHz-band; (e) Boundary setting of the CMMA in THz-band.

Theory and principle

Table 2
The geometric parameters’ value of the proposed CMMA.
The capital A, R and T are represented the absorptivity, reflectivity
GHz unit cell (μm) THz unit cell (μm) The thickness (μm) and transmissivity respectively, the energy equation are written as A =
Big cross Small cross
1-R-T. Because of the fully covered copper layer of the GHz and THz
pg lg wg pt lt wt t1 t2 t3 t4 t5 structure, the incident EM wave cannot be transmitted to external, in
1200 720 240 120 92 26 18 270 18 26 5 other words, the transmissivity T can be regarded as 0, and the ab­
sorptivity A can be simplified as A = 1-R. Therefore, for the sake of
achieving perfect absorption, the reflectivity R of the proposed CMMA
of THz unit cell. The thickness of copper layer is t1 and t3, and the should be reduced as much as possible. The effective medium theory are
thickness of the gold layer is t5. The thickness of FR-4 is t2 and that of utilized to analyze the reason of reducing the reflectivity of the CMMA.
Polyimide (PI) is t4. Structural parameters of GHz and THz unit cell are The proposed CMMA unit cell consists of GHz unit cell and THz unit
optimized respectively by scanning parameters in software CST. What cell. For incident GHz EM wave, the thickness of the proposed CMMA is
calls for special attention is that structural parameters of GHz unit cell only 0.124 of the wavelength at the minimum resonance frequency
pg, lg, wg should be an integer multiple of 2 × pt, which allows the THz (110.2 GHz), which is much smaller than the incident wavelength in
unit cell to superimpose on the hollow-out cross of Copper layer space. Therefore, the electromagnetic response of the CMMA can be
completely. The optimized structural parameters are shown in Table 2. regarded as remaining unchanged in the absorption frequency band. In
The calculation is adapted by the CST software which is designed other words, in the GHz-band, the CMMA can be considered as a ho­
based on FIT (Finite Integral Technique). For comparing with the ab­ mogeneous medium, which is expressed by the equivalent permittivity
sorption spectra of individual GHz and THz unit cell, the absorption εg and the equivalent permeability μg. While for incident THz EM wave,
behavior of the proposed CMMA in the 0–200 GHz and 1-2THz bands are because the thickness of the CMMA’s copper layer is much thicker than
calculated respectively, and it is meshed by tetrahedrons self-adaptively, the skin depth of copper at the absorption frequency, the THz EM wave
which sets the cells per wavelength as 4. As illustrated in Fig. 3(d, e), the cannot penetrate the copper layer and transmit to the GHz unit cell.
source is plane wave, the electric vector E and the magnetic vector H is Thus, the combined structure of the gold layer, the polyimide dielectric
parallel to the direction y and x respectively, and the incident wave layer and the copper layer can be considered as the THz unit cell to
vector is along to the negative z axis. In terms of boundary setting, the achieve the absorption of THz-band. Because the thickness of the THz
boundary in both the x and y directions are set as the periodic boundary unit cell is 0.193 of the wavelength at the minimum resonance frequency
Unit Cell, and the z direction is set as Open. Such a boundary setting (1.18THz) of the THz-band, which means the THz unit cell also can be
renders it exhibits the Floquet periodic boundary, which achieves the regarded as a homogeneous medium expressed by the equivalent
calculation of the periodic structure of the CMMA. permittivity εt and permeability μt. Due to immeasurability of the

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Z. Luo et al. Results in Physics 30 (2021) 104893

Fig. 4. The S-parameters S11 and S21 in TE and TM mode of the proposed CMMA. (a) S11 and S21 from 0 to 200 GHz; (b) S11 and S21 from 1 to 2THz.

Fig. 5. The retrieved equivalent electromagnetic parameters and impedance. (a) Equivalent electromagnetic parameters (εg and μg) in GHz-band; (b) Equivalent
impedance (Zg) in GHz-band; (c) Equivalent electromagnetic parameters (εt and μt) in THz-band; (d) Equivalent impedance (Zt) in THz-band.

equivalent electromagnetic parameters and impedance, more easily [ ]− 1

measured and calculated scattering parameters (S-parameters) are used (1 + S11 )2 − S21
2
Z= (1)
to retrieve the equivalent electromagnetic parameters. S-parameters of (1 − S11 )2 − S21
2

the CMMA is calculated by the CST, which is illustrated in Fig. 4. On the [ ]

basis of the Nicolson-Ross-Weir (NRW) Equation [34,35], which are 1 1 ( )
n= cos− 1 2
1 − S11 2
− S21 (2)
shown in Eqs. ((1)–(4)), the retrieved equivalent electromagnetic pa­ kd 2S21
rameters and impedance are illustrated in Fig. 5.

Fig. 6. Absorption spectra of the GHz, THz and the CMMA unit cell. (a) In GHz-band under TE and TM mode; (b) In THz-band under TE and TM mode.

4
Z. Luo et al. Results in Physics 30 (2021) 104893

Table 3 ⃒ ⃒2
⃒ε cosθ − √̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅
n2 − sin2 θ ⃒⃒ ⃒ε(ω) − n⃒2 ⃒⃒Z − 1⃒⃒2
The resonance frequency and absorption rate of the proposed CMMA and GHz/ ⃒ r ⃒ ⃒
(6)
RTM = |rTM |2 = ⃒ √̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅ ⃒ = ⃒ ⃒ = ⃒⃒ ⃒
THz unit cell. ⃒εr cosθ + n2 − sin2 θ ⃒ ε(ω) + n Z + 1⃒
The GHz/THz unit cell The proposed CMMA unit cell
Obtained from Eqs. ((5), (6)), when the relative impedance Z = 1, the
Resonance Frequency Absorption Resonance Frequency Absorption reflectivity R achieves the minimum, and when ε is equal to μ, the
(GHz) rate (GHz) rate
relative impedance Z is equal to 1. As illustrated in Fig. 5, at the reso­
110.2 0.9390 110.2 0.6817 nance frequencies (expect the first absorption peak) of the proposed
161.4 0.9999 162.32 0.9918 CMMA, both the real and imaginary part of the equivalent permittivity is
185.4 0.9969 186.37 0.9918
1180 0.9995 1181 0.9999
equal to that of the equivalent permeability. And the real part of the
1840 0.9999 1847 0.9999 equivalent impedance is equal to 1, the imaginary part of the equivalent
impedance is equal to 0. The calculations indicate that the impedance of
the proposed CMMA is equal to the vacuum wave impedance. It means
ε = n/Z (3) the CMMA achieves impedance matching, which is the reason for perfect
absorption.
μ = n⋅Z (4)
According to the Fresnel Equation [36], the reflectivity R can be Calculation and result
expressed as Eqs. ((5), (6)).
⃒ ⃒2 ⃒ Absorption analysis
⃒μ cosθ − √̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅
n2 − sin2 θ ⃒⃒
⃒ ⃒
⃒μ(ω) − n⃒2 ⃒Z − 1⃒2
⃒
⃒ r
2
RTE = |rTE | = ⃒ √̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅ ⃒ = ⃒⃒ ⃒ =⃒
⃒ ⃒
⃒ (5) For the sake of exploring the absorption relationship between the
⃒μr cosθ + n2 − sin2 θ ⃒ μ(ω) + n Z + 1⃒

Fig. 7. The distribution of the electric field. (a) The top resonator of the GHz unit cell at GHz-band; (b) The top resonator of the GHz unit cell at THz-band; (c) The top
resonator of the THz unit cell at GHz-band; (d) The top resonator of the THz unit cell at THz-band; (e) The copper layer of the proposed CMMA at GHz-band; (f) The
copper layer of the proposed CMMA at THz-band; (g) The gold layer of the proposed CMMA at GHz-band; (h) The gold layer of the proposed CMMA at THz-band. The
distribution of the magnetic field in the dielectric layer of the proposed CMMA. (i) At GHz-band; (j) At THz-band. The distribution of the surface current of the
proposed CMMA. (k) At GHz-band; (l) At THz-band.

5
Z. Luo et al.
Fig. 8. The absorption spectra of the various incident angle. (a) The proposed CMMA unit cell; (b) The individual GHz unit cell. The absorption spectra of the various
polarization angle. (c) The proposed CMMA unit cell; (d) The individual THz unit cell.
proposed CMMA and individual GHz and THz unit cell, the absorption
spectra of the CMMA, GHz and THz unit cell are calculated respectively.
In order to reflect the polarization insensitivity of the CMMA, the ab­
sorption spectra in TE (Transverse Electric) and TM (Transverse Mag­
netic) mode are calculated respectively. TE mode refers to the
propagation mode which the electric field component in direction of
propagation is zero and the magnetic field component is not zero, while
the TM mode refers to the propagation mode which the magnetic field
component in direction of propagation is zero and the electric field
component is not zero. As illustrated in Fig. 6, in GHz-band, the ab­
sorption frequency of the proposed CMMA are basically coincident with
that of the GHz unit cell, while the first peak’s absorptivity of the GHz
unit cell has a significant decline compared with the CMMA. In THz-
band, the resonance frequency and absorptivity of the two absorption
peaks of the proposed CMMA and THz unit cell are highly consistent,
and both absorptivities almost achieve 100%, which can be seen in
Table 3. The absorption calculations show that both the resonance fre­
quency and absorptivity of the superposed CMMA has a good agree­
ment with that of the individual GHz and THz unit cell. When a CMMA
with specific needs should be designed, the individual GHz and THz unit
cell can be designed and optimized separately firstly, and then super­
posed the GHz and THz unit cell to achieve the simultaneous absorption.
Electromagnetic analysis
The distribution of electromagnetic field and surface current of the
proposed CMMA and the individual GHz and THz unit cell are calcu­
lated to explore the CMMA absorption mechanism. Several absorption
frequencies in GHz and THz (110.20 GHz, 162.32 GHz, 186.37 GHz,
1.18 THz and 1.85 THz) are selected as resonance frequency points for
electromagnetic analysis.
As illustrated in Fig. 7(a, c, e, g), in GHz-band, the electric field
distribution of the top resonator of the GHz unit cell is consistent with
that of the CMMA’s gold layer. For the THz unit cell, there are basically
no electric field on the top resonator. On account of the polarization of
the polyimide dielectric layer, the electric field on the CMMA’s copper
layer is opposite to that on the bottom of gold layer. As illustrated in
Fig. 7(i, k), in GHz-band, the currents are distributed on the gold, copper
and grounding layer. The currents distributed between gold and copper
layer, and between copper and grounding layer are two groups of anti-
parallel currents, which can be considered as two pairs of magnetic di­
poles respectively. It is these two pairs of magnetic dipoles that generate
magnetic resonance in the polyimide dielectric layer and the FR-4
dielectric layer. Therefore, three absorption peaks of GHz-band are ­
generated by the interaction of the electric resonance on the metal
layers and the magnetic resonance within the dielectric layers. From the
distribution of the surface current and magnetic field, the
6
Results in Physics 30 (2021) 104893
mainly absorption contribution is made by the magnetic resonance
occurred within the FR-4 dielectric layer.
Because the absorption peaks of GHz-band is affected by the electric
resonance of the gold layer, it is inevitable that the magnetic resonance
within polyimide layer will generate interference to the absorption
peaks. This is the reason that the absorptivity of the superposed CMMA
is lower than that of the individual GHz unit cell. As shown in Fig. 7(i),
there are strong magnetic resonance within the polyimide layer at the
low frequency point 110.20 GHz, so that the absorptivity has an
obvious decrease.
As illustrated in Fig. 7(b, d, f, h), in the THz-band, the electric
resonance is generated on both the GHz and THz unit cell, and that on
the THz unit cell’s resonator is consistent with the CMMA’s gold layer.
As illustrated in Fig. 7(j, l), the electric resonance occurred on gold and
copper layers generates a group of anti-parallel current. It is regarded as
a pair of magnetic dipole, which generates magnetic resonance within
the polyimide dielectric layer, while that little occurs within the FR-4
dielectric layer. Hence, two absorption peaks of THz-band are mainly
generated by the combined action of electric resonance on the gold ­
and copper layer and magnetic resonance within the polyimide dielec­
tric layer, the GHz unit cell has little influence on the
superposed CMMA.
In a word, in GHz-band, both GHz and THz structural parts have an
effect on the absorption, the EM resonance in GHz structural part makes
the main contribution to absorption, while the strong EM resonance in
the THz structural part decreases the absorptivity. In THz-band, the
absorption is mainly contributed by the EM resonance in THz structural
part, while the GHz structural part has little effect on the absorption.
Polarization and incidence analysis
In order to exploring the relationship between the proposed CMMA
and individual unit cell about the polarization and incident character­
istics, the polarization characteristics in THz-band and incident char­
acteristics in GHz-band are select to be mainly comparison.
As illustrated in Fig. 8(a, b), as the incident angle increases from 0◦ to
40 , the absorption peaks of the CMMA and GHz unit cell all main­
◦
tain high absorptivity, while the absorption peaks show significant blue
shifts. The changing trends of the CMMA unit cell is coincide with GHz
unit cell, which means the incident characteristics of the individual unit
cell can be used in superposed unit cell. As illustrated in Fig. 8(c, d), as
the polarization angle increases from 0◦ to 45◦ , the absorption spectra of
the proposed CMMA and THz unit cell are basically unchanged, and
that of the CMMA are in good agreement with the THz unit cell. The
results demonstrate that the polarization characteristics of individu­
al unit cell also can be applied to the superposed unit cell. The calcu­
lations show that the polarization and incident characteristics of the
Z. Luo et al. Results in Physics 30 (2021) 104893

Fig. 9. The absorption spectra of various structural parameters. (a) The arm length of hollow-out cross of the GHz unit cell lg; (b) The arm length of hollow-out cross
of the THz unit cell lt; (c) The arm width of hollow-out cross of the GHz unit cell lg; (d) The arm width of hollow-out cross of the THz unit cell lt; (c) The thickness of
the FR-4 t2; (d) The thickness of the Polyimide t4.

CMMA are consistent with that of the individual unit cell, which means
that the design of the polarization and incident characteristics for the
individual unit cell can be applied to the superposed unit cell.
Structural parameter analysis
The change of structural parameters has an effect on the absorption
performance, and the resonance frequencies can be adjusted by chang­
ing the structural parameters to be suitable for practical application. In
order to analyzing the influence of the individual unit cell’s various
structural parameters on the superposed unit cell, six main parameters
are selected, which is lg, lt, wg, wt, t2, t4. As shown in Fig. 9(a), as the
increasing of lg, the three absorption peaks all show obvious red shift,
while absorptivities decrease significantly. As shown in Fig. 9(b), as the
increasing of lt, the first peak has obvious red shift, and the second peak
has slight red shift. The absorptivity of the first peak increases firstly and
then decreases, and that of the second peak basically remains un­
changed. As illustrated in Fig. 9(c), as the increasing of wg, the first peak
has a blue shift, and the absorptivity has an increase, while absorptivity
of other peaks have a decrease. As illustrated in Fig. 9(d), as the
increasing of wt, both of the absorption peaks proceed distinct blue shift,
and the absorptivities stay the same. As shown in Fig. 9(e), as the
increasing t2, the second and third absorption peaks proceed obvious red
shift, and absorptivities increase first and then decrease. The resonance
frequency and absorptivity of the first peak remains unchanged. As
illustrated in Fig. 9(f), as the increasing t4, the first peak has no changes,

7
Z. Luo et al.
while the second peak proceeds distinct red shift.
In GHz-band, all changing rules of the proposed CMMA unit cell are
coincident with the GHz unit cell, while in THz-band, the overall ab­
sorption spectra of the CMMA unit cell present a blue or red shift
compared with the THz unit cell. The results of structural parameters
analysis demonstrate that the influence of various parameters of the
individual GHz and THz unit cell on the absorption performance of the
individual MMA is consistent with that of the superposed CMMA. In
other words, the resonance frequency and absorption performance of
the superposed structure can be adjusted by changing parameters of the
individual absorption structure.
Conclusion
In this paper, a cross-band metamaterial absorber is proposed, which
can be applied simultaneously in both GHz-band and THz-band. It is
superposed structure based on hollow-out cross resonator, and the ab­
sorption principle is explained by impedance matching. The absorption
is caused by the combined action of electric resonance on metal layers
and magnetic resonance in the dielectric layers. The calculations of
absorption demonstrate that both the absorption performance and po­
larization/incident characteristic of the superposed CMMA are consis­
tent with the GHz and THz unit cell respectively, there has a similar
relationship as for various structural parameters. The proposed CMMA
can be applied in multi-band electromagnetic stealth, and the super­
position design concept provides a novel idea for designing.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Zhiyou Luo: Writing – original draft. Shijun Ji: Writing - review &
editing. Ji Zhao: Project administration. Han Wu: Validation. Handa
Dai: Supervision.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation
of China (Grant No. 51775237), Key R&D Projects of the Ministry of
Science and Technology of China (Grant Nos. 2018YFB1107600 and
2017YFA0701200), and Key Scientific Research Project of Jilin Pro­
vincial Department of Education (Grant No. JJKH20200972KJ).
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