Chinese scientists have developed a radical new type of stealth material that they claim makes a fighter jet less vulnerable to radar detection, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reports.
The newspaper cited Professor Luo Xiangang and his colleagues from the Institute of Optics and Electronics with the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Chengdu as claiming that they created a mathematical model that describes the behaviour of electromagnetic waves when in contact with a metal surface spotted with microscopic patterns.
This model helped them develop a membrane, also known as a meta surface, which is capable of absorbing radar waves in “the widest spectrum yet reported.”
During the test, the new technology allowed the researchers to cut a reflected radar signal which was measured between 10 and 30dB in a frequency range from 0.3 to 40 gigahertz.
“This detection range is incredible. I have never heard of anyone even coming close to this performance. At present, absorbing technology with an effective range of between 4 and 18 GHz is considered very, very good,” an unnamed stealth technologist from Fudan University in Shanghai, who was not involved in the work, was cited by the SCMP as saying.
He claimed that any fighter jet or warship equipped with this technology can “fool” all military radar systems currently in operation.
