Metal Cooper nanoparticles embedded in porous carbon as high reflection loss absorbers of high frequency electromagnetic wave

Abstract

Metal Cu/C nanocomposites were prepared by a facile one-step encapsulation process and then annealing the mixture of organic carbon compound and metal nitrate. Morphology detection indicated that Cu nanoparticles were uniformly anchored in the porous carbon matrix. An electromagnetic (EM) wave absorption of Cu/C nanocomposites with various mass proportions of porous carbon was performed in the frequency range of 1.0–18.0 GHz. The structure and morphology of Cu/C nanocomposites could be tuned by changing the carbon proportion for obtaining suitable electromagnetic parameters, which resulted in a superior EM wave absorption property. For Cu/C 1–3 nanocomposites, the reflection loss values of −46 dB were obtained at 17.0 GHz with a rather thin thickness of 1.4 mm and exceed −20 dB in the range of 7.4–18.0 GHz for the thickness 1.4–2.8 mm. The Cu/C nanocomposite exhibited excellent EM wave absorption performance under a rather thin thickness, which suggested that Cu/C nanocomposite could be regarded as a promising candidate for high-performance EM wave absorber.