Effects of particle sizes on the electromagnetic property of flaky FeSi composites

Abstract

Flaky FeSi absorbents with different size ranges were fabricated by sintering after mechanical milling process. X-ray diffraction (XRD) was used to analyze the particle crystal grain structure. The complex permittivity and permeability of FeSi/paraffin composites were measured in frequency of 2–12 GHz using a vector network analyzer, and the DC electric conductivity was measured by the standard four-point contact method, then microwave reflection loss (RL) and shielding effectiveness (SE) were calculated. It was obtained that α-Fe appeared in the super-lattice diffraction peaks in XRD pattern. As the particles size decreased, the permittivity decreased due to the inferior microwave electrical conductivity and dielectric loss tangent, while the permeability increased due to the decrease of diameter-thickness ratio, which could be demonstrated in the comparison between the experiment and calculation results. When thickness is 1 mm, the composites with the smallest FeSi particles addition had a better absorbing property for the better impedance matching characteristic, and the minimum RL was −7.9 dB at 4.6 GHz. While the composites with larger FeSi particles addition had an excellent shielding property due to the higher permittivity, the SE value ranged from 15 dB to 30 dB at the frequency band.