Effect of Structure Modification on the Microwave Absorbing Performance of Carbon Foams

Abstract

Carbon foams were prepared by a polymer sponge replication process and their microwave absorbing properties were investigated. The electric conductivity of carbon foam has a direct effect on its microwave absorbing property, as the carbon foam with a medium electric conductivity of 0.46S/m has got a relatively excellent microwave absorbing property and demonstrated a characteristic of broadband absorption. Some structure modification has been made on carbon foams to fruther imrove their microwave absorbing performance. The result shows that making slots, especially gradient slots on the surface of carbon foams can greatly improve their microwave absorbing properties, while the reflection coefficients for a three-layered carbon foam structure exceeds -10dB with the combination effect of multilayer structure design and parameters gradient variatioin in the whole frequency range of 2.6-18GHz, which is usually to be considered as the practical application standard for microwave absorbing materials.