Bioinspired Metamaterials: Multibands Electromagnetic Wave Adaptability and Hydrophobic Characteristics

TLDR

Various photonic devices inspired by natural materials exist, but none address multiband adaptability, limiting progress in materials science. The study designs and prepares hierarchical metamaterials inspired by moth eye surfaces to serve as tunable devices across microwave to ultraviolet frequencies. The metamaterials are fabricated using a hierarchical structure inspired by moth eye surfaces, and simulations reveal topological effects in the bio‑structure that enable multiband adaptability. Experiments show the metamaterials achieve over 90 % microwave absorption across 8.04–17.88 GHz with 1 mm thickness, simultaneously reduce infrared emissivity, provide anti‑reflection and camouflage via visible light scattering, suppress near‑UV transmittance below 10 %, and exhibit hydrophobicity, demonstrating a versatile photonic platform.

Abstract

Abstract Although various photonic devices inspired by natural materials have been developed, there is no research focusing on multibands adaptability, which is not conducive to the advancement of materials science. Herein, inspired by the moth eye surface model, state‐of‐the‐art hierarchical metamaterials (MMs) used as tunable devices in multispectral electromagnetic‐waves (EMWs) frequency range, from microwave to ultraviolet (UV), are designed and prepared. Experimentally, the robust broad bandwidth of microwave absorption greater than 90% (reflection loss (RL) < −10 dB) covering almost entire X and Ku bands (8.04–17.88 GHz) under a deep sub‐wavelength thickness (1 mm) is demonstrated. The infrared emissivity is reduced and does not affect the microwave absorption simultaneously, further realizing anti‐reflection and camouflage via the strong visible light scattering by the microstructure, and can prevent degradation by reducing the transmittance to less than 10% over the whole near UV band, as well as having hydrophobic abilities. The mechanism explored via simulation model is that topological effects are found in the bio‐structure. This discovery points to a pathway for using natural models to overcome physical limits of MMs and has promising prospect in novel photonic materials.