PANI-coated YIG/CFO hybrid composites as advanced electromagnetic wave absorber through X-band

Polyaniline (PANI)-coated Y3Fe5O12(YIG)/CoFe2O4(CFO) hybrid composites were synthesized via sol-gel and oxidative polymerization methods to achieve advanced microwave absorption properties. The structural, morphological, magnetic, and microwave absorption characteristics of the resulting samples were analyzed by performing X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), vibration sample magnetometer (VSM), and vector network analyzer (VNA). XRD results revealed that CFO and YIG have cubic crystal structures with Fd3m and Ia3d space symmetry, respectively, with an average crystallite size of 35.3 nm and 42.9 nm. The Ferro/ferrimagnetic signals were detected from the ferrite samples' room temperature magnetic hysteresis loops. The incorporation of PANI and YIG into the composites resulted in a decrease in their magnetic saturation (Ms) and coercive field (Hc) values. VNA measurements demonstrated that nearly all samples achieved 90% absorption (≤−10 dB) of incident electromagnetic waves throughout the X-band frequency range. The minimum reflection loss (RLmin) value reaches − 47.34 dB at 8.14 GHz, with an effective bandwidth of 4.00 GHz, covering the entire X-band and beyond. These impressive absorption characteristics suggest that the manufactured composites possess potential as viable candidates for defense applications conducted at X-band frequency.