New coating can make China’s stealth aircraft invisible to anti-stealth radar: study

Chinese military scientists have achieved the impossible with a new stealth material that can defeat anti-stealth radar

Reading Time:2 minutes

Why you can trust SCMP

Anti-stealth radar, such as this one at a Chinese air show, will be blind to aircraft and weapons coated with a newly developed stealth material made by Chinese scientists. Photo: Dickson Lee

Stephen Chenin Beijing

Published: 10:00am, 25 Nov 2024

The Chinese military has unveiled a stealth material capable of blinding anti-stealth radars.

Laboratory tests have demonstrated that it can effectively absorb low-frequency electromagnetic waves from various angles, with a thickness equivalent to just two sheets of printing paper – a feat previously deemed impossible.

Anti-stealth radars emit electromagnetic waves with wavelengths reaching centimetres or even metres. Currently, due to their thinness, the materials coated on stealth aircraft are unable to effectively absorb these long-wave signals.

China has deployed a large number of anti-stealth radars along its coastline and on naval ships, and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) claims the radars can detect stealth fighter jets such as the US F-22 and F-35 from considerable distances.

But now the new material developed by scientists from the National University of Defence Technology (NUDT) can convert electromagnetic waves with wavelengths ranging from 70cm (2.3 feet) to 20cm into heat.

This covers the operating bandwidths of most current anti-stealth radars, namely the P-band and L-band.

This material is lightweight, flexible and easy to produce in large quantities, making it suitable for covering aircraft or other weapon platforms requiring stealth capabilities.