An electromagnetic wave absorbing material with potential application prospects—WS₂ nanosheets

In this study, we report two-dimensional WS₂ nanosheets successfully synthesized by simple hydrothermal method. The obtained WS₂ nanosheets are very promising as electromagnetic wave absorbers. The phase composition, microstructure, electromagnetic properties and microwave absorption properties of the prepared WS₂ nanosheets were characterized by XRD, SEM, TEM, XPS and vector network analyzers. Our results show that the real and imaginary parts of permittivity of WS₂ prepared at 210 °C are higher than those of other samples, with maximum interfacial polarization and dielectric loss, a wide effective absorption band with a thinner thickness is obtained in the frequency range of 5.5–18 GHz. The effective absorption bandwidth can reach 12.5 GHz, the highest reflection loss of the sample wax containing 40% WS₂ is –15.6 dB at a thickness of 5.5 mm, and the absolute value of RL is greater than 10 dB in the range of 2.0–5.5 mm. The results show that the prepared WS₂ nanosheets have the advantages of wide bandwidth, strong absorption and light weight, and have potential application prospects in the application and development of microwave absorbing materials in the future.