Development of an Indigenous Microwave Absorber

This paper describes the design and method in developing a low cost, reliable and good performance microwave absorber for the application in anechoic chamber room measurement. Theoretically, the absorber is designed and to be functioning at a frequency range from 1.5GHz to 15GHz (in pyramidal-shaped). However, due to the equipment limitation for measurement, the absorber is only tested for 2GHz and 10GHz frequency. The pyramidal-shaped is chosen since its performance has been proven to work at microwave frequency. A survey on materials that can be used to coat the absorber has been carried out and a variety of the materials are tested. The absorbers are made from polystyrene, which are cut into pyramidal shape and then coated with carbon. The measurement of the pyramidal absorber is carried out in order to determine its performance. Lastly, the results are compared to the commercialized absorber in terms of the absorption performance and found to be less about 22.8% and 10.9% at 2GHz and 10GHz respectively.