Rational construction of yolk-shell structured Co₃Fe₇/FeO@carbon composite and optimization of its microwave absorption

The construction of yolk-shell composites with dielectric/magnetic multiple loss mechanisms has become a promising strategy to obtain high-efficiency microwave absorbing materials. An ideal microwave absorber should possess dielectric and magnetic loss abilities, thereby leading to the attenuation and absorption of incident electromagnetic radiation. Herein, the yolk-shell structured CoFe₂O₄@carbon (YS-CoFe₂O₄@C) and Co₃Fe₇/FeO@carbon (YS-Co₃Fe₇/FeO@C) composites were designed and synthesized through a series of processes, which include in-situ coating, heat-treating, etching and subsequent carbonization reduction reaction. The composite materials with specific structure, composition, and electromagnetic parameters could be effectively obtained by controlling the reaction conditions. The combination of alloy with high magnetic loss and carbon with advanced dielectric loss as well as the unique yolk-shell structure endow YS-Co₃Fe₇/FeO@C improved impendence matching and large attenuation constant. The YS-Co₃Fe₇/FeO@C composites show optimized microwave absorption behaviors, the minimum reflection loss is up to −57.6 dB at 12.30 GHz with the of 2.5 mm and the corresponding effective absorption bandwidth is 5.27 GHz (10.10–15.37 GHz). Moreover, the widest effective bandwidth could reach 7.0 GHz (11–18 GHz) with the thickness of 2.3 m. This design provides a novel concept for tuning microwave absorption efficiency of magnetic/dielectric composites to prepare high-performance microwave absorbers.