Origami-Based Metamaterials for Dynamic Control of Wide-Angle Absorption in a Reconfigurable Manner

Achieving ultrawide-angle absorption is urgently required in stealth technology. In this article, we propose a promising scheme to push the development of this issue and achieve wide-angle electromagnetic (EM) absorption in a dynamically controllable manner via a reconfigurable origami-based metamaterial. For this purpose, the Miura-ori sheet is applied to load the meta-atoms with cross-shaped resistive films. Accordingly, the wide-angle absorption characteristics of the origami absorber change drastically by adjusting the folded states. In contrast with the conventional 2-D and 3-D absorbers, the 3-D origami absorber state has four normal vectors. Thus, it provides an excellent approach to prevent the deterioration of absorption in a wide-angle range. When the folding angle $\theta =35$ °, the origami absorber exhibits an ultrawideband absorption of 1.44–40 GHz and wide-angle absorption up to 70°. As a proof-of-concept, a prototype that can shift the folding angle from 0° to 90° was fabricated. The absorption performances in the two folding states of fixed folding angles are numerically simulated and experimentally verified in the microwave regime. We believe that the better coverage incident-angle characteristics of the proposed reconfigurable origami-based absorber at specific folding state broaden its applications in various fields, such as EM pollution, radar technology, and EM invisibility.