Chinese researchers have developed a special material capable of making stealth jets and ships harder to detect using anti-stealth radar. The development of the technology shows China catching up in an area of defense traditionally dominated by the United States.

The material, known as active frequency selecting surface, or AFSS, is covered with a substance used in printed circuit boards. AFSS has the ability to adapt to different radar frequencies and react to them, much like a radio wave counterpart of a chameleon skin.

While there are existing stealth materials that can absorb microwaves fired by radars, these are thick and heavy to use. The new material is far thinner and lighter compared to the conventional ones, which offer advantageous implications in terms of use.

"Our proposed absorber is almost ten times thinner than conventional ones," said Wenhua Xu, from China's Huazhong University of Science and Technology, said.

Typical airplanes hide their appearance using body geometry, which reflects radio waves away from the receivers, and wave-absorbing materials that turn waves into heat instead of reflecting them back. Utilized by the Pentagon to protect fighter planes, this can be disadvantageous because newer radar technologies use ultra-high-frequency (UHF) radar, which can detect traces of the plane missed by other radar.

The new aircraft developed by the Chinese researchers consists of a thin material just 5/16 of an inch, protecting stealth planes against UFH detection. The AFSS adapts to range of detection frequencies, effectively concealing itself from radar scans.

"In this paper, we present an ultra-thin broadband AFSS absorber with a stretching transformation (ST) pattern for use in UHF applications," the researchers wrote in their study published in the Journal of Applied Physics.

"As radar detection equipment continues to improve, our thin absorbers with broad bandwidth and working in the UHF band will be widely useful."

It is not clear if China's military has already adopted this technology on the Chengdu J-20 and the Shenyang J-31, two of its stealth jets. No confirmations have been made as to its plans to advance the technology. Nevertheless, the breakthrough can potentially boost the capability of the Chinese military, air- and sea-wise.

Many consider stealth to be one of the key technologies that allowed for the dominance of the U.S. military over the last century. The method effectively neutralized and offset the technological gains made by other nations.

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