Design and development of high-performance metamaterial absorber for moisture-sensing application

Metamaterials are frequently employed as sensors in a wide range of applications because of their special qualities that are not present in nature. This study focus on the design, fabrication and measurement of a novel shape metamaterial absorber for moisture-sensing applications. The proposed metamaterial absorber consists of modified cross along with split square resonator shape conductor on top of a 0.6 mm thick substrate. Parametric studies are also performed on the different design parameters, such as the thickness of the substrate and split square resonator etc. to figure out the optimal value of design variables. The simulated results of the proposed absorber illustrate the maximum reflection coefficient at 9.9 GHz. The obtained reflection coefficient value is − 30.5 dB at the resonant frequency The measured results of the absorber also show good agreement with the simulated results. Furthermore, the proposed metamaterial-based absorber utilize as a sensor. The proposed sensor design demonstrates excellent results in terms of resonance shift, sensitivity, linearity, Q factor, and figure of merit, making it a good candidate for moisture-sensing applications.