High-efficient production of SiC/SiO2 core-shell nanowires for effective microwave absorption

In the current report, we have demonstrated that the high-efficient production of SiC/SiO2 core-shell nanowires can be achieved through the introduction of trace of water vapor during the chemical vapor deposition process. The yield of the SiC/SiO2 core-shell nanowires is dramatically improved due to the introduction of water vapor. The SiC/SiO2 core-shell nanowires exhibit an excellent microwave absorption property in the frequency range of 2.0-18.0 GHz with a very low weight percentage of 0.50 wt.% in the absorbers. A minimum reflection loss value of -32.72 dB (> 99.99% attenuation) at 13.84 GHz has been observed with the absorber thickness of 3.0 mm. Moreover, the SiC/SiO2 core-shell nanowires based absorber can reach an effective absorption bandwidth (<-10 dB) of 532 GHz with the absorber thickness of 3.5 mm. Furthermore, a possible absorption mechanism is also proposed in detail for such effective attenuation of microwave which can be attributed to the dielectric loss and magnetic loss of SiC/SiO2 core-shell nanowires. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.