We examine several ways to manipulate the loss in electromagnetic cloaks, based on transformation electromagnetics. It is found that, by utilizing inherent electric and magnetic losses of metamaterials, perfect wave absorption can be achieved based o
n several popular designs of electromagnetic cloaks. A practical implementation of the absorber, consisting of ten discrete layers of metamaterials, is proposed. The new devices demonstrate super-absorptivity over a moderate wideband range, suitable for both microwave and optical applications. It is corroborated that the device is functional with a subwavelength thickness and, hence, advantageous compared to the conventional absorbers.
A radial-dependent dispersive finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method is proposed to simulate electromagnetic cloaking devices. The Drude dispersion model is applied to model the electromagnetic characteristics of the cloaking medium. Both lossle
ss and lossy cloaking materials are examined and their operating bandwidth is also investigated. It is demonstrated that the perfect invisibility from electromagnetic cloaks is only available for lossless metamaterials and within an extremely narrow frequency band.
