Tailoring La0.8Sr0.2MnO3/La/Sr nanocomposite using a novel complementary method as well as dissecting its microwave, shielding, optical, and magnetic characteristics

Abstract

In this work, a novel approach was introduced to reduce the oxide nanoparticles and extract the pure metal from them. Accordingly, La0.8Sr0.2MnO3 nanoparticles were prepared through the conventional citrate gel method, and then they were reduced using a solvothermal method by ethylene glycol as a reductive agent. Chemical species, magnetic parameters, crystal structures, and morphological properties of the fabricated structures were deeply studied by Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR), vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM), X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), and field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) analyses, respectively. Noticeably, the curves of the diffuse reflection spectroscopy (DRS) suggested a lower energy gap for the La0.8Sr0.2MnO3/La/Sr nanocomposite. Finally, the microwave absorbing characteristics of the specimens were scrupulously investigated using the polystyrene (PS) and polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) media. It was found that La0.8Sr0.2MnO3/La/Sr blended in PVDF gained a remarkable reflection loss of 94.68 dB at 15.31 GHz with an only thickness of 1.75 mm, meanwhile displaying an efficient bandwidth as wide as 6.74 GHz (reflection loss (RL) > 10 dB). Noteworthy, La0.8Sr0.2MnO3/PS illustrated a considerable efficient bandwidth of 2.36 GHz (RL > 20 dB). Moreover, La0.8Sr0.2MnO3 composites demonstrated more than 88% electromagnetic interference shielding efficiency (SE) along the X and Ku-band frequency.