Multi-scale structural design of multilayer magnetic composite materials for ultra-wideband microwave absorption

Broadband microwave absorbing (MA) materials have important applications in reducing electromagnetic radiation pollution and realizing low scattering characteristics. However, current MA materials with single-layer structure generally cannot meet this requirement due to the difficulty in achieving good impedance matching. Here, we design a multilayer-structured MA material, which consists of a wave transmitting layer, a carbon-magnetic material composite absorbing layer, a strong magnetic absorbing layer and a reflector layer. Hollow Co/CoFe@C composite particles prepared using CoCoPBA as templates are used as fillers to design carbon-magnetic material composite absorbing layer. The Co/CoFe bimagnetic phases enhance permeability while the hollow structure optimizes permittivity, which endows this absorbing layer with strong microwave absorption ability with a reflection loss of −47.18 dB. The introduction of a strong magnetic absorbing layer that combines FeSiAl with high permeability and SmFeB with high coercivity further significantly improves the overall impedance matching of the material. Benefitting from the multi-scale structural design, the obtained multilayer MA material achieves strong microwave absorption in both low and high frequency ranges, and the effective absorption bandwidth reaches 12.85 GHz, far superior to the traditional single-layer MA material.