Microwave Absorbing Properties of Fe-Filled Carbon Nanotubes/Epoxy Composite in 2-18GHz

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) filled with ferromagnetic metals have potential applications of microwave absorption and electromagnetic interference shielding due to their high aspect-ratio of nanostructures that promises low percolation threshold and their inner cavities which could incorporate magnetic materials to improve the permeability and magnetic loss of composites. It has been reported that CNTs have high permittivity [1, 2]. And it could be used as dielectric microwave absorbers due to their high permittivity [3, 4]. Excellent microwave absorption should have better electromagnetic match of magnetic loss and dielectric loss. The microwave absorption could be significantly improved by matching the dielectric and magnetic contribution from respective components (e.g. CNTs and Fe) [5]. For CNTs, only dielectric loss contributes to the energy loss of microwave, while for ferromagnetic nanowires, the effect of magnetic loss becomes dominant over the dielectric loss. Either only the dielectric loss or magnetic loss may induce weak microwave absorption due to the imbalance of the electromagnetic match. Here we directly fabricated the microwave absorber by as-grown Fe-filled CNTs, which have the dielectric properties of CNTs and magnetic properties of the filled iron nanowires.