https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/s10053-026-01120-3
Research - Photons
Four-band flexible metamaterial absorber based on multi-layer square metal rings
1
Jiaxing Nanyang Polytechnic Institute, Jiaxing, China
2
Institute of Optoelectronic Technology, China Jiliang University, 310018, Hangzhou, China
3
Hangzhou Qiushi New Materials Technology Co., LTD, Hangzhou, China
4
College of Information Engineering, China Jiliang University, 310018, Hangzhou, China
a
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Received:
1
September
2025
Accepted:
12
January
2026
Published online:
17
February
2026
Abstract
This study proposes a flexible metamaterial absorber based on multi-layer square closed metal rings and PDMS (polydimethylsiloxane). This absorber uses PDMS as the support base and adopts a multi-layer metal ring stacking structure made of stretchable silver conductive ink to achieve four significant absorption peaks in the 0–0.6 THz frequency band, with peak all exceeding 90%. Its absorption mechanism stems from the LC resonance excited by adjacent metal rings and the metal ohmic loss. The intact metal layer at the bottom can reduce the transmittance to nearly zero. Parametric studies show that period, metal ring line width and thickness have regulatory effects on the frequency and intensity of absorption peaks: an increase in period mainly reduces the intensity of high-frequency absorption peaks, an increase in line width causes the absorption peaks to shift blue, and an increase in thickness leads to a decrease in peak values and the merging of low-frequency peaks. This absorber features excellent stretchability, maintaining an absorption peak of over 90%. Moreover, within the incident angle range of 0–70°, the absorption peaks in both TE and TM modes exceed 90%. This design combines flexibility, wide-angle stability and efficient multi-frequency absorption performance, providing potential application prospects for fields such as flexible electronics, wearable technology and terahertz imaging.
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© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to EDP Sciences, SIF and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2026
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
