Nowadays, low-frequency electromagnetic interference (<2.0 GHz) remains a key core issue that plagues the effective attenuation performance of conventional absorption devices prepared via the component-morphology method (Strategy I). According to theoretical calculations, one fundamental solution is to develop a material that possesses a high ε' but lower ε″. Thus, it is attempted to control the dielectric values via applying an external electrical field, which inducts changes in the macrostructure toward a performance improvement (Strategy II). A sandwich-structured flexible electronic absorption device is designed using a carbon film electrode to conduct an external current. Simultaneously, an absorption layer that is highly responsive to an external voltage is selected via Strategy I. Relying on the synergistic effects from Strategies I and II, this device demonstrates an absorption value of more than 85% at 1.5-2.0 GHz with an applied voltage of 16 V while reducing the thickness to ≈5 mm. In addition, the device also shows a good absorption property at 25-150 °C. The method of utilizing an external voltage to break the intrinsic dielectric feature by modifying a traditional electronic absorption device is demonstrated for the first time and has great significance in solving the low-frequency electromagnetic interference issue.

The porous three-dimensional (3-D) flower structures assembled by numerous ultrathin flakes were favor for strengthen electromagnetic absorption capability. However, it still remains a big challenge to fabricate such kind of materials. In this study, an easy and flexible two-step method consisting of hydrothermal and subsequent annealing process have been developed to synthesize the porous 3-D flower-like Co/CoO. Interestingly, we found that the suitable heat treatment temperature played a vital role on the flower-like structure, composition, and electromagnetic absorption properties. In detail, only in the composite treated with 400 °C can we gain the porous 3-D flower structure. If the annealing temperature were heated to 300 °C, the Co element was unable to generate. Moreover, when the annealing temperature increased from 400 to 500 °C, these flower-like structures were unable to be kept because the enlarged porous diameter would wreck the flower frame. Moreover, these 3-D porous flower-like structures presented outstanding electromagnetic absorption properties. For example, such special structure enabled an optimal reflection loss value of -50 dB with the frequency bandwidth ranged from 13.8 to 18 GHz. The excellent microwave absorption performance may attribute to the high impedance matching behavior and novel dielectric loss ability. Additionally, it can be supposed that this micrometer-size flower structure was more beneficial to scatter the incident electromagnetic wave. Meanwhile, the rough surface of the ultrathin flake is apt to increase the electromagnetic scattering among the leaves of the flower due to their large spacing and porous features.

The rod-like structure of MnO2@Fe is apt to convert the electromagnetic wave to microcurrent and then attenuate it.

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Design of an interface to arouse interface polarization is an efficient route to attenuate high-frequency electromagnetic waves. The attenuation intensity is highly related to the contact area. To achieve stronger interface polarization, growing metal oxide granular film on graphene with a larger surface area seems to be an efficient strategy due to the high charge carrier concentration of graphene. This study is devoted to fabricating the filmlike composite by a facile thermal decomposition method and investigating the relationship among contact area, polarization intensity, and the type of metal oxide. Because of the high-frequency polarization effect, the composites presented excellent electromagnetic wave attenuation ability. It is shown that the optimal effective frequency bandwidth of graphene/metal oxide was close to 7.0 GHz at a thin coating layer of 2.0 mm. The corresponding reflection loss value was nearly -22.1 dB. Considering the attenuation mechanism, interface polarization may play a key role in the microwave-absorbing ability.

Among all polarizations, the interface polarization effect is the most effective, especially at high frequency. The design of various ferrite/iron interfaces can significantly enhance the materials' dielectric loss ability at high frequency. This paper presents a simple method to generate ferrite/iron interfaces to enhance the microwave attenuation at high frequency. The ferrites were coated onto carbonyl iron and could be varied to ZnFe2O4, CoFe2O4, Fe3O4, and NiFe2O4. Due to the ferrite/iron interface inducing a stronger dielectric loss effect, all of these materials achieved broad effective frequency width at a coating layer as thin as 1.5 mm. In particular, an effective frequency width of 6.2 GHz could be gained from the Fe@NiFe2O4 composite.

In this paper, we designed a novel core-shell composite for microwave absorption application in which the α-Fe2O3 and the porous CoFe2O4 nanospheres served as the core and shell, respectively. Interestingly, during the solvothermal process, the solvent ratio (V) of PEG-200 to distilled water played a key role in the morphology of α-Fe2O3 for which irregular flake, coin-like, and thinner coin-like forms of α-Fe2O3 can be produced with the ratios of 1:7, 1:3, and 1:1, respectively. The porous 70 nm diameter CoFe2O4 nanospheres were generated as the shell of α-Fe2O3. It should be noted that the CoFe2O4 coating layer did not damage the original shape of α-Fe2O3. As compared with the uncoated α-Fe2O3, the Fe2O3@CoFe2O4 composites exhibited improved microwave absorption performance over the tested frequency range (2-18 GHz). In particular, the optimal reflection loss value of the flake-like composite can reach -60 dB at 16.5 GHz with a thin coating thickness of 2 mm. Furthermore, the frequency bandwidth corresponding to the RLmin value below -10 dB was up to 5 GHz (13-18 GHz). The enhanced microwave absorption properties of these composites may originate from the strong electron polarization effect (i.e., the electron polarization between Fe and Co) and the electromagnetic wave scattering on this special porous core-shell structure. In addition, the synergy effect between α-Fe2O3 and CoFe2O4 also favored balancing the electromagnetic parameters. Our results provided a promising approach for preparing an absorbent with good absorption intensity and a broad frequency that was lightweight.

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