Electromagnetic interference shielding efficiency of MnO2 nanorod doped polyaniline film

The polymer nanocomposite thin film is of interest due to many advantages for electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding. In this work, low temperature (-30 +/- 2 degrees C) in situ synthesized polyaniline (PANI)-MnO2 nanorod composite (PMN) were solution processed, followed by acid vapor treatment for preparing free standing films and EMI shielding effectiveness (SE) were investigated in the frequency range i.e. X-band (8.2-12.4 GHz) and Ku-band (12.4-18 GHz). As prepared PMN film (169 +/- 2 mu m) shows most effective EMI SE similar to 35 dB (EMI shielding due to absorption, SEA similar to 24 dB and EMI shielding due to reflection SER similar to 11 dB) in the X-band which was observed to be similar to 39 dB (SEA similar to 29 dB and SER similar to 10 dB) in the Ku-band. The variations of conductivity, penetration depth, EM attenuation constant of the PMN film in the X-band and Ku-band were also investigated along with dielectric study.