Achieving full effective microwave absorption in X band by double-layered design of glass fiber epoxy composites containing MWCNTs and Fe3O4 NPs

The glass fiber epoxy composites containing MWCNTs and Fe3O4 NPs were manufactured by composites liquid molding process. The microwave absorbing properties of single-layered and double-layered glass fiber/MWCNTs/epoxy and glass fiber/Fe3O4 NPs/epoxy composites were evaluated. The reflection loss(RL) were calculated by the measured complex permittivity and permeability using waveguide method by vector network analyzer. Based on the mechanism analysis and deficiency of single-layer absorber, the double-layered composites were fabricated by using matching layer and absorbing layer to enhance the microwave absorption performance, which can be modulated by tailoring the electromagnetic parameters and thicknesses of each layer. The optimized microwave absorbing properties of double-layered composites with minimum RL of -45.7 dB and full X-band effective absorption can be achieved when the total thickness of the matching layer and absorbing layer is 1.8 mm, which can be attributed to synergistic effect of improved impedance matching characteristic and superior microwave attenuation characteristic of the absorbing layer. The combined utilization of dielectric loss and magnetic loss absorbent and their double-layered structure design shows great design flexibility and diversity and can be a promising candidate for designing high performance microwave absorbing materials.