Reduced Graphene Oxide/Silicon Nitride Composite for Cooperative Electromagnetic Absorption in Wide Temperature Spectrum with Excellent Thermal Stability

The fabrication of a sandwich-like composite that consists of reduced graphene oxide (RGO) and Si3N4 ceramic (RGO/Si3N4) was achieved through the combination of modified freeze-drying approach and chemical vapor infiltration process. Due to a hierarchical structure and a high ratio of ID/IG (1.27), the RGO/Si3N4 exhibits an unprecedented high polarization relaxation loss (PRL), which accounts for 32% of the whole dielectric loss. The outstanding PRL endows the RGO/Si3N4 composites with unique temperature-independent dielectric properties and electromagnetic (EM) wave absorption performance. Even at a low absorbent content of only 0.16 wt %, the effective absorption bandwidth of RGO/Si3N4 composites can cover the whole X-band (8.2–12.4 GHz) at broad sample thicknesses ranging from 4.3 to 4.6 mm and temperatures ranging from 323 to 873 K. The mechanism for the enhancement of PRL and conductive loss was explicitly investigated. The outstanding absorption performance toward EM waves indicated that the resultant porous RGO/Si3N4 composite can be a promising candidate for the applications under elevated temperature.