Planar Metamaterial Absorbers for Calibration of Microwave Radiometers for Atmospheric Remote Sensing

In this work, we present metamaterial-based microwave absorbers fabricated on organic-based printed circuit boards as promising alternatives to traditional, bulky microwave absorbers for the calibration of microwave radiometers for atmospheric remote sensing. Their use is particularly attractive for onboard calibration of sensors on CubeSats and other small satellites. Planar metamaterials can be fabricated with near-unity absorption over a very broad frequency range, and are scalable by tuning the unit cell geometry. Specifically, we describe an approach and initial measurements toward designing a broadband metamaterial emitter operating at millimeter wave sounding channels from 50 GHz 230 GHz, enabling a thin, cost-effective calibration target for millimeterwave atmospheric remote sensing.