Multifunctional Carbon Foam with Nanoscale Chiral Magnetic Heterostructures for Broadband Microwave Absorption in Low Frequency

Abstract

The construction of carbon nanocoil (CNC)-based chiral-dielectric-magnetic trinity composites is considered as a promising approach to achieve excellent low-frequency microwave absorption. However, it is still challenging to further enhance the low frequency microwave absorption and elucidate the related loss mechanisms. Herein, the chiral CNCs are first synthesized on a three-dimensional (3D) carbon foam and then combined with the FeNi/NiFe₂O₄ nanoparticles to form a novel chiral-dielectric-magnetic trinity foam. The 3D porous CNC-carbon foam network provides excellent impedance matching and strong conduction loss. The formation of the FeNi-carbon interfaces induces interfacial polarization loss, which is confirmed by the density functional theory calculations. Further permeability analysis and the micromagnetic simulation indicate that the nanoscale chiral magnetic heterostructures achieve magnetic pinning and coupling effects, which enhance the magnetic anisotropy and magnetic loss capability. Owing to the synergistic effect between dielectricity, chirality, and magnetism, the trinity composite foam exhibits excellent microwave absorption performance with an ultrabroad effective absorption bandwidth (EAB) of 14 GHz and a minimum reflection of loss less than − 50 dB. More importantly, the C-band EAB of the foam is extended to 4 GHz, achieving the full C-band coverage. This study provides further guidelines for the microstructure design of the chiral-dielectric-magnetic trinity composites to achieve broadband microwave absorption.