Radio-frequency metamaterials for cloaking, absorption and wave control

Metamaterial technology has provided us with new tools to explore fascinating applications and physical phenomena. Metamaterials have also inspired many scientists and engineers to think about concepts and ideas under a new light. In this work, we look at ways to use metamaterial technologies to solve modern-day challenges. In particular, we have realized covers enabled by metamaterials and metasurfaces that strongly suppress scattering at all angles, still allowing for field penetration inside the “cloaked” region. This important property opens great opportunities across a multitude of sensor applications. There are many current and forward-looking applications where a sensor with control over its presence to a given environment is of great interest. Advantages of our approach are simplicity of fabrication, resiliency to loss and manufacturing imperfections, extraordinarily low and conformal profile, and natural integration with electronics. In this work, we explore practical applications of our cloaking techniques including: low observability, interference reduction from closely spaced co-located antennas, and reduction or modulation of the scattering of receiving dipole antennas, while maintaining any desired level of received power. With such designs, high-performance sensing and measurement techniques, as well as commercial antenna applications, such as co-site antenna platforms and side-lobe level reduction can be envisioned.