Investigation and optimization of Fe/ZnFe2O4 as a Wide-band electromagnetic absorber.

In this research, a facile in-situ growth method was applied to load ZnFe2O4 nanoparticles on carbonyl iron (Fe) flakes. These loaded ZnFe2O4 exhibited cone shape with an average size of ∼200 nm. The results revealed that the frequency region with reflection loss <-10 dB (fE) was up to 6.2 GHz (d = 1.5 mm), suggesting excellent wideband electromagnetic absorption (EM) properties. The electromagnetic absorption mechanism was discussed in depth which attributed to the synergetic effect of Fe and ZnFe2O4. The loaded ZnFe2O4 played a key role on suppressing inverse electromagnetic radiation, eddy effect, simultaneous maintaining moderate magnetic loss ability. Besides, the formed interface of ZnFe2O4/Fe could induce interface polarization relaxation effect at external electromagnetic field, which greatly boosted the effective dielectric loss ability (ε''E). Meanwhile, the interface polarization intensity was controllable by tuning the weight ratio of Fe.