We report on the design, fabrication, and measurement of a triple-band absorber enhanced from a planar two-dimensional artificial metamaterial transmission line (TL) concept. Unlike previous multiband absorbers, this implementation incorporates fractal geometry into the artificial TL framework. As a consequence of the formed large $LC$ values, the utilized element is compact in size, which approaches ${\lambda }_0$/15 at the lowest fundamental resonant frequency. For independent control and design, a theoretical characterization based on a circuit model analysis (TL theory) is performed and a set of design procedures is also derived. Both numerical and experimental results have validated three strong absorption peaks across the $S$, $C$, and $X$ bands, respectively, which are attributable to a series of self-resonances induced in the specific localized area. The absorber features near-unity absorption for a wide range of incident angles and polarization states and a great degree of design flexibility by manipulating the $LC$ values in a straightforward way.

• Received 4 July 2012

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.86.205104