Tunable and weakly negative permittivity in carbon/silicon nitride composites with different carbonizing temperatures

Despite the exotic electromagnetic properties have been demonstrated in metamaterials to date, how to effectively adjust negative electromagnetic parameters remains a challenge. Tunable negative permittivity is essential for the metamaterials to satisfy a variety of practical applications, such as capacitor, microwave absorbing and shielding. Here, we fabricated a random metamaterial, carbon/silicon nitride (C/Si3N4) composite, using a feasible impregnation-pyrolysis method. The microstructure and dielectric property of the composites with different heat treatment temperatures (HTTs) and carbon contents were investigated. The amorphous carbon membrane adhered on the rod-like Si3N4 grains. The negative permittivity behavior combined with inductive character was obtained in the composites, which was attributed to the low frequency plasmonic state generated from the formative conducting carbon networks. The magnitude of negative permittivity is demonstrated to be successfully adjusted by controlling the HTT and carbon content. The result is in good agreement with the analysis of Drude model. Interestingly, a weakly negative permittivity behavior was observed in the measured frequency, showing small negative values of permittivity between -50 and -10, which was ascribed to a moderate carrier concentration provided by the carbon networks. This work provides an effective way to achieve the tunable and weakly negative permittivity in random metamaterials. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.