Light-weight wideband electromagnetic wave absorber based on aramid paper

A lightweight wideband honeycomb absorber is theoretically and experimentally investigated. The proposed absorber is constructed of aramid paper, which contains carbon fibers to absorb partially the incident electromagnetic wave. Graded silver paste circuits are also printed on aramid paper to improve the impedance matching properties and, thus, achieve wideband absorption performance. An absorber sample was fabricated and measured to verify the design strategies. The designed absorber has a fractional absorption bandwidth of 133% from 3.6–18 GHz, with a thickness of 0.19λL at the lowest frequency. The total weight of the absorber is 18.2 g, with a density of 28.4 kg/m3.