Obtaining Strong, Broadband Microwave Absorption of Polyaniline Through Data-Driven Materials Discovery

Microwave absorbing materials (MAMs) are highly utilized in the defense and telecommunications industries, as means for reducing radar cross sections for stealth technology, and providing electromagnetic interference shielding for the information processing and transport capabilities in electronic devices. Polyaniline materials have attracted enormous attention in the field of MAM development due to their strong dielectric properties. In this manuscript, the strong dielectric action of polyaniline is utilized to demonstrate for the first time how to mathematically model the EM response of materials as a means for accurately simulating, predicting, and optimizing the microwave absorption performance. Using this process, the microwave absorbing properties of polyaniline are successfully optimized and record-breaking performances are demonstrated for both the reflection loss and effective bandwidth, yielding experimentally-derived responses ofRL= -88.5 dB at 7.0 GHz, 3.8 mm and Delta f(10)= 5.5 GHz at 2.1 mm. The methods presented herein are generalizable and have the potential to be broadly applicable to MAM research and development.