High-Performance Energy Selective Surface Based on Equivalent Circuit Design Approach

This article presents a detailed circuit analysis of energy selective surface (ESS), which adaptively protects electronic equipment from high-power microwaves (HPMs) thanks to its self-actuated response and nonlinear transmission feature. With the help of the equivalent circuit model (ECM), four types of ESS schemes are individuated and two of them are analyzed in detail to explore the influence of ECM parameters on the performance of ESS. Then, a high-performance ESS is designed through the proposed method. The proposed structure is realized by metal periodic structures loaded with diodes and lumped capacitors. A prototype is fabricated and measured. The results of simulations and experiments agree well, showing that the proposed ESS provides more than 30 dB shielding for high-power signals and an insertion loss lower than 1 dB for low-power signals. The excellent nonlinear transmission characteristic makes the proposed ESS practical for HPM protection.