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Achieving C/CuO microfiber composites with efficient microwave absorbing performance at low thickness

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Abstract

The carbon fibers with low density still face significant microwave absorbing application issues due to their high dielectric constant. Herein, C/Cu core–shell microfiber composites are prepared by electroless plating. The Cu coating of C/Cu core–shell microfiber composites is oxidized to CuO at 300 °C and 400 °C temperature. The morphology, microstructure, and electromagnetic characteristics of C/CuO microfiber composites were analyzed. The diameter of all the fiber composites was about 7–8 μm. The CuO coating thickness formed at 300 °C and 400 °C temperature is 30–90 nm and 300–900 nm, respectively. The annealing process tunes the electromagnetic characteristics and optimizes impedance matching. The minimum reflection loss (RL) value of C/CuO core–shell microfiber composites annealed at 300 °C temperature remarkably reaches − 46.0 dB at 1.06 mm thickness and 3.6 GHz effective absorption bandwidth (RL ≤ − 10 dB). The C/CuO microfiber composites can be the ideal absorbing materials at a lower thickness.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (51771085, 51571104, 51801087 and 51801088), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (lzujbky-2019-88), Open Project for Sharing Advanced Scientific Instruments of Lanzhou University (LZU-GXJJ-2019C019), and Open Project of Key Laboratory of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials of the Ministry of Education, Lanzhou University (LZUMMM2019008).

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  1. School of Materials Science and Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Advanced Processing and Recycling of Non-ferrous Metals, Lanzhou University of Technology, Lanzhou, 730050, People’s Republic of China

    Yupeng Wei, Junzhi Zhu, Yan Xie, Feiyun Zhao, Jianzhuang Jiang, Tiantian Jiang & Linqi Li

  2. Key Laboratory of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials of the Ministry of Education, School of Physical Science and Technology and Electron Microscopy Centre of Lanzhou University, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 730000, People’s Republic of China

    Yupeng Wei, Yang Hu, Junwei Zhang & Yong Peng

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  1. Yupeng Wei
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Wei, Y., Zhu, J., Xie, Y. et al. Achieving C/CuO microfiber composites with efficient microwave absorbing performance at low thickness. J Mater Sci: Mater Electron 32, 25973–25986 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-021-05517-1

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