Ordered Heterostructured Aerogel with Broadband Electromagnetic Wave Absorption Based on Mesoscopic Magnetic Superposition Enhancement

Demand for lightweight and efficient electromagnetic wave (EW) absorbers continues to increase with technological advances in highly integrated electronics and military applications. Although MXene-based EW absorbers have been extensively developed, more efficient electromagnetic coupling and thinner thickness are still essential. Recently, ordered heterogeneous materials have emerged as a novel design concept to address the bottleneck faced by current material development. Herein, an ordered heterostructured engineering to assemble Ti3CNTx MXenes/Aramid nanofibers/FeCo@SiO2 nanobundles (FS) aerogel (AMFS-O) is proposed, where the commonly disordered magnetic composition is transformed to ordered FS arrays that provide more powerful magnetic loss capacity. Experiments and simulations reveal that the anisotropy magnetic networks enhance the response to the magnetic field vector of EW, which effectively improves the impedance matching and makes the reflection loss (RL) peaks shift to lower frequencies, leading to the thinner matching thickness. Furthermore, the temperature stability and excellent compressibility of AMFS-O expand functionalized applications. The synthesized AMFS-O achieves full-wave absorption in X and Ku-band (8.2-18.0 GHz) at 3.0 mm with a RLmin of -41 dB and a low density of 0.008 g cm(-3). These results suggest that ordered heterostructured engineering is an effective strategy for designing high-performance multifunctional EW absorbers.

Automated summary

Demand for lightweight and efficient electromagnetic wave absorbers is increasing rapidly due to advancements in integrated electronics and military applications. MXene-based absorbers have been widely studied, but there is a need for more efficient coupling and thinner thicknesses. Ordered heterogeneous materials have emerged as a novel design concept to address this challenge. In this study, an ordered heterostructured engineering approach was proposed to improve the magnetic loss capacity of Ti3CNTx MXenes/Aramid nanofibers/FeCo@SiO2 nanobundles aerogel. The results show enhanced response to the magnetic field vector and improved impedance matching, leading to thinner matching thickness. The synthesized material achieved full-wave absorption in the X and Ku-band with a low reflection loss and density, demonstrating the effectiveness of ordered heterostructured engineering for high-performance electromagnetic wave absorbers.