Engineered Porous Vanadium Nitride Architectures toward Efficient Electromagnetic Wave Absorption

Electromagnetic wave absorbing materials are essential for pollution control, communication security, and stealth applications. This study presents a porous vanadium nitride (VN) material with excellent absorption performance. First-principles calculations reveal that ammonia-induced dehydrogenation-reduction facilitates lattice oxygen removal and structural collapse, forming through-hole channels and defect-rich interfaces. These features enhance dielectric loss and interface polarization. As a result, the material achieves a minimum reflection loss of −38.49 dB at 6.3 GHz with a thickness of 3.5 mm. When the thickness is reduced to 2 mm, the absorption bandwidth broadens to 10.86–14.00 GHz, demonstrating effective thickness-adjustable performance. The ammonia-driven pore-forming strategy enables both lightweight structure and high absorption efficiency. This work not only highlights the potential of VN as a standalone absorber but also as a composite matrix, offering a theoretical basis and practical route for developing composite broadband electromagnetic materials.