Mono- and Bistatic Scattering Reduction by a Metamaterial Low Reflection Coating

Significant reduction of mono- and bistatic scattering cross sections of an electrically large metallic cube through the application of an electrically thin metamaterial low reflection coating operating in the Ka-band (30-40 GHz) is described. A coating composed of a metallic array of sub-wavelength sized capacitively loaded strip inclusions printed on top of a thin, slightly lossy and grounded substrate has been designed and fabricated to experimentally evaluate the performance of the coating in scattering reduction. The scattering reduction is estimated by comparing the mono- and bistatic scattering patterns of the coated and uncoated cube. The measurement results are compared with full wave and physical theory of diffraction simulations, and the possibility of accurately modeling the low reflection coatings with impedance boundary conditions is pointed out.