Tunability Study of Plasma Frequency Selective Surface Based on FDTD

This paper is focused on using plasma as element of a frequency selective surface (FSS). FSSs have been used for filtering electromagnetic waves for many years. Conventional FSSs use metal patch pattern as periodic element. This paper takes the plasma tube as a substitution for metal patch. The 3-D finite-difference time-domain method with periodic boundary condition is utilized to simulate the interaction of incident wave and plasma FSS. Numerical calculation results in that electron number density of plasma can dominate the resonance frequency obviously. The resonance frequency increases as the increasing of electron number density of plasma to the limit of that of perfectly electric conductor. Thus, the FSS can be designed to be tunable by changing the ionized electron number density. Both of the noncollision and collisional plasma model are introduced to study the FSS characteristics. The numerical calculation results show that the collision frequency only influences the reflectivity while has no effect on the resonant frequency. The resonant frequency and transmitted power ratio can be tuned by assigning the plasma’s electron number density and collision frequency. Thus, plasma elements offer the possibility of improved shielding effect along with reconfigurability. Plasma FSS can also be made transparent by tuning the plasma off which makes the use of FSS more versatile.