Whereas composed of sub-wavelength buildings, Frequency Selective Surfaces are able to manipulating electromagnetic waves—bending, filtering, or absorbing them throughout numerous communication and sensing purposes. Is it shaping the way forward for adaptive electromagnetic environments?
What if one might management the behaviour of electromagnetic waves—bending, absorbing, or filtering them—utilizing surfaces thinner than a human hair? There’s a entire fascinating world of metasurfaces, the place materials science meets electromagnetic mastery.
A metasurface constitutes a skinny, synthetic layer of fabric that modifies the amplitude, section, or polarisation of sunshine to control the way in which electromagnetic waves journey. Metamaterials are synthetic substances fabricated from sub-wavelength constructing models, normally fabricated from metallic. Contemplating the polarisation response, all metasurfaces may be categorised as excellent absorbers, excessive impedance surfaces, reflecting surfaces, or frequency selective surfaces (FSS).
FSSs are composite materials metasurfaces which have an electrical response and are made partly clear inside particular frequency bands whereas reflecting, absorbing, or rerouting to different frequencies. Quite a few unit cell varieties with a spread of geometrical patterns, together with patches, cross dipoles, loops, hexagons, convoluted shapes, and fractal geometries, may be employed within the design and implementation of FSSs. Inside a interval referred to as a unit cell, these parts generate frequency responses that may be dictated by the construction’s kind.
However, the radio frequency response of the filtering FSSs are separated into the 4 major kinds of low cross, excessive cross, band cease, and band cross filters primarily based on their materials, geometry, and development. FSSs with a daily variety of slots (or apertures), as illustrated in Desk 1, are inductive and act like a high-pass/band-pass filter, rejecting waves at each decrease and better frequencies whereas allowing waves to movement by means of on the resonant frequency of the slots. FSSs with periodic arrays of patches, alternatively, are capacitive and work equally to a low-pass/band-stop filter, rejecting waves on the patch’s resonance frequency whereas allowing waves at greater and decrease frequencies to cross by means of.

The array component, structural design, and application-oriented can be utilized to categorise FSSs. The final classification of the FSS is proven in Fig.1.

FSSs – Fundamental Component Kind
4 basic teams of FSS parts are depicted in Fig. 1(b): group 1 consists of N-poles or center-connected shapes together with dipoles, tripoles, sq. spirals, and Jerusalem crosses; group 2 consists of looped shapes like round, sq., and hexagonal loops; group 3 consists of strong inside or patch kinds of totally different shapes; and group 4 consists of mixtures of any of these as talked about above.
Convoluted Meandered FSSs
FSSs that make use of convoluted geometries, corresponding to meander strains, to minimise the scale of their unit cell and profile are referred to as convoluted meandering FSSs. The advantages and purposes of this construction have been outlined in Fig.2 (a).
Fractal-Based mostly FSSs
With a view to obtain multiband traits, self-similar fractal patterns are used within the development of fractal-based FSSs. Fractals have comparable shapes that may be produced through the use of a suggestions loop to repeat a mathematical calculation. The classification of this sort with buildings is given in Fig.2 (b). The kinds of FSSs with their properties and purposes have been listed in Desk 2 primarily based on structural design and application-oriented.

Identify of FSSs | Definition | Purposes |
Structural Design | ||
Single layer | Integrable, mountable to bigger antenna apertures, decrease mass, quantity, and value, utilized in radar designs. | Electromagnetic filters, Excessive Impedance Surfaces, Synthetic Magnetic Conductors, Radomes, Multi-frequency reflector antennas, Polarization converters |
Multilayer | bigger bandwidth at a decrease working frequency, | Extremely wideband (UWB) antennas, high-pass filter in microwave oven doorways, Stealth and hypersonic plane |
Antenna-filter-antenna | Low profile, excessive frequency selectivity, enhancement of BW, particularly when the fractal geometries are utilised within the array component | Antennas, Radomes, Shielding, Medical & Wi-fi communications |
3D-dimensional | Flexibility in form, decreased weight, free-standing, and built-in design in all kinds of Radomes. | Wi-fi structural motion detection, Radomes, 3D FSS displacement sensor |
Software-oriented FSSs | ||
Microwave absorbing FSSs | Two-dimensional arrays of microwave-absorbing aperture elements or conducting metallic patches. | Stealth expertise, Electromagnetic interference discount, Antenna sample shaping & Radar cross discount |
Energetic FSSs | Buildings that may alter their filtering or angular responsiveness in actual time in response to exterior stimuli. | Activate or off transmission at a sure frequency, numerous band-stop properties, preserving cellphones out of secure areas like airport lounges. |
Wearable FSSs | Metallic array-based spatial filters positioned on a dielectric substrate | In medical physique space networks (MBANs), wi-fi physique space networks (WBANs), and to decrease a wearable antenna’s particular absorption fee (SAR) |
Meta-skin FSSs | Constructed leveraging display screen printing strategies and composed of silicone sheets and electrical cut up ring resonators. | Utilized to clothes or as elements for masking uneven surfaces. |
Optical FSSs | Metallic grid with the flexibility to transmit or replicate sure frequencies of electromagnetic radiation. | Radomes, microwave ovens, polarisation conversion gadgets, electromagnetic shielding, multi-frequency reflector antennas, electromagnetic absorbers, and modern metamaterials. |
Textile FSSs | Versatile, breathable material that retains its textile qualities even when it rejects millimetre wave radiation. | To safeguard those that labour in dimly lit areas. Coronary heart fee, temperature, pores and skin most cancers detection, well being monitoring, and the chemical, digital, mechanical, and civil sectors. |
FSSs proceed to play a pivotal position in shaping the way forward for wi-fi and radio frequency applied sciences. With their distinctive capability to regulate electromagnetic wave behaviour, these buildings supply promising improvements in antenna design, filtering programs, and past.