Cu-Co Hybrid Crystals Assembled on Hollow Microsphere: Temperature-Dependent Top-Down Synthesis and Aggregation-Induced Conversion from Microwave Shielding to Absorption

Abstract

The construction of hollow metallic microspheres with rationally designed building blocks of the metal shell is a promising way to achieve low density and functionality control, but the microengineering of the metallic structures on a micrometer spherical surface is a great challenge. In the present work, a novel and simple calcination-induced aggregation strategy is developed to realize the distribution status and microstructure control of Co-Cu bimetal building blocks assembled on a hollow glass microsphere support, and thus a series of low-density (0.58 g cm⁻³) dual shell composite hollow microspheres are constructed with gradient in electromagnetic property depending on the calcination temperature (CT). The optimized microwave shielding performance can be achieved at a CT of 500 °C, while further increasing CT to 700 °C leads to an interesting conversion from microwave shielding to absorption with an optimized effective absorption bandwidth of 4.64 GHz at a low matching thickness of 1.33 mm. The mechanism underlying the CT-dependent metallic shell structure variation and further the decisive effect of the shell structure on the microwave response behavior are proposed based on a series of contrast experiments.