Received June 19, 2020, accepted July 6, 2020, date of publication July 17, 2020, date of current version August 17, 2020. Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/ACCESS.2020.3009904 A New Compact Quad-Band Metamaterial Absorber Using Interlaced I/Square Resonators: Design, Fabrication, and Characterization MOHAMED EDRIES 1 , HESHAM A. MOHAMED 2 , (Member, IEEE), SHERIF S. HEKAL 3 , (Member, IEEE), MOHAMED A. EL-MORSY 1 , (Member, IEEE), AND HALA A. MANSOUR 3 1 Department of Electronics and Communication, Higher Institute of Engineering El Shorouk City, Cairo 11714, Egypt 2 Department of Microstrip Circuits, Electronics Research Institute, Cairo 12622, Egypt 3 Department of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering at Shoubra, Benha University, Cairo 11629, Egypt Corresponding author: Mohamed Edries (m.edries@sha.edu.eg) ABSTRACT This paper presents the design and analysis of a new compact quad-band metamaterial absorber (MMA). The proposed structure is constructed as an array of 12 × 13 unit cells, each one is based on a combination of interlaced I/square resonators supporting four distinct resonant frequencies. The proposed metamaterial unit cell is printed on FR-4 substrate with thickness 1.5 mm and size 20 mm × 20 mm. The MMA structure exhibits four distinct absorption peaks at 2.248, 2.878, 4.3 and 5.872 GHz with absorption rates of 96, 93, 93, and 95 %, respectively, under normal incidence. This design achieves a negative permittivity and permeability that is applicable for S-band and C-band operating frequencies. The MMA unit cell structure has a 3-dB bandwidth of 78, 89, 144 and 202.6 MHz. The proposed structure has compactness of 0.15 λ 0 × 0.15 λ 0 with thickness of 0.0112 λ 0 , where λ 0 is the free-space wavelength with respect to the lowest resonance frequency (2.248 GHz). The input impedance, surface currents and electric field distributions are shown to illustrate the mechanism of the structure. The design has been fabricated showing a good agreement between simulated and measured results. The proposed absorber structure can be used in different applications such as electro-magnetic protections, as well as military and medical applications. All simulation results are performed using the Computer Simulation Technology (CST), Microwave Studio 2018 software and Mathwork simulation tool MATLAB ver. 2011. INDEX TERMS Metamaterial, quad band absorber, multi band, interlaced resonators. I. INTRODUCTION During the last decade, scientific research focused on the development of the properties of materials used to give special specifications according to their practical use. After that, the scientists got the metamaterials (MTM), and found that they own new properties that are not found in nature. There is no common definition for metamaterial; however, all common descriptions of metamaterial are that they are artificial materials that gain their properties from the struc- ture rather than from the composition which can provide unusual electromagnetic effects difficult to be accomplished by nature materials [1]. The metamaterials are utilized in numerous engineering applications for example, perfect lens The associate editor coordinating the review of this manuscript and approving it for publication was Guido Valerio . [2], cloaking [3], and absorbers [4]. Two parameters define the response of a material; the electric permittivity ε, and the magnetic permeability µ, so the propagation of the electro- magnetic wave inside any material depends on the sign of µ and ε. It is convenient to describe most electromagnetic materials by the quadrant where they lie in the permittivity ε and permeability µ plane. The first quadrant lies where µ> 0 and ε> 0 and it is called Double Positive Medium (DPM). This region contains most commercially materials, and the electromagnetic waves can propagate in this media besides, it obeys Right Hand Medium (RHM). The second quadrant is called Epsilon Negative Medium (ENM) and it lies in the region µ> 0 and ε< 0. The electromagnetic wave in this region will be evanescent such as plasmas. The third quadrant lies where µ< 0 and ε> 0. Similarly, in this region, the inci- dent electromagnetic wave will be decay evanescent such VOLUME 8, 2020 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. For more information, see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 143723