Smart
materials and structures with tunable electromagnetic (EM) properties
are highly demanded for active environmental sensitive systems. As
polar molecules in the environment, in this work, water and ice are
utilized as wetting and freezing conditions to manipulate the electromagnetic
response behaviors in a graphene-based composite material, aiming
to achieve a smart weather-manipulated EM metamaterial. Owing to the
introduced polar water and ice phase in the self-assembled porous
electromagnetic attenuating networks, energy consumption of EM waves
is significantly altered via multiple scattering of polar induced
interfaces. In frozen conditions, a wide absorption band (2–18
GHz) with efficient absorption (reflection loss < −10 dB)
has been obtained. Additionally, the mechanical feature of the as-assembled
metamaterials could also be manipulated via altering the weather conditions
in terms of changing the phase of the introduced water. Interestingly,
the mechanical properties could be massively changed while the broadband
absorption capability has rarely been impacted. Implication of the
results highlights an efficient method for fabricating smart EM metamaterials
that are capable of being manipulated by the environment.