  We realized and experimentally tested a conceptually new kind of electrically
thin absorbers of electromagnetic waves. The idea is to utilize a single layer
of precisely designed meta-atoms. This allows one to design an absorber with
unprecedentedly small thickness. The absorber implies absence of a ground
plane. High efficiency of the realized structure in the S band is demonstrated.
The conceptual idea of the proposed absorber can find many applications
especially at optical frequencies.
