High-selectivity electromagnetic absorption with milli-wavelength-thick flexible metagraphene

Pursuing extremely-thin, high-selectivity, and flexible absorbers is strongly required for mitigating the electromagnetic pollution in various miniaturized and space-limited scenarios, such as flexible electronic devices, cloaking systems, and anechoic chambers. Traditional synthetic methods, focusing on enhancing the real part of the absorbing materials’ permittivity through compositional and microstructural modifications, are however confronted with many limitations and have only reached centi-wavelength thick or even larger, impeding their integration into compact and flexible devices. Herein, we propose an interdisciplinary flexible metagraphene architecture, in which electromagnetic waves are selectively induced by the upper anomalous resonant-antiresonant metasurface into the lower ultrahigh-loss nitrogen-doped wavy graphene-based material for flexible, extremely-thin, and high-selectivity absorption. By overcoming the inherent physical contradiction of high loss and extremely-thin absorption, metagraphene achieves a perfect absorption with a top-class selectivity of 357.1 at a record-breaking thickness down to 0.001λ₀ (λ₀ represents the wavelength with the minimum reflection), surpassing state-of-the-art absorbers by 1–2 orders of magnitude. Furthermore, metagraphene offers further thinning potential, large-scale manufacturability, angular stability, and frequency universality, thus promising diversified applications in extremely-miniaturized electronic devices and space-constrained equipment.