Electromagnetic wave absorption of polymer derived ceramic composites tuned by multi-component oxide solid solution

Polymer-derived ceramics (PDCs) are important ceramics for high temperature electromagnetic wave (EMW) absorption because of their tunable conductivity with the pyrolysis temperature. However, it is usually difficult to tune the dielectric properties of the PDCs by only controlling the content of absorption phase in the material system for the purpose of acquiring a wide EMW absorption band. In this work, we illustrate that the PDCs with wide-band high temperature absorption can be obtained through the synergistical tuning by multi-component oxide solid solution (MOS), nano ZrB₂ and the metamaterial structure design. The PDCs were prepared by co-pyrolyzing the SiOC precursor, nano ZrB₂ and MOS. The MOS helps to tune the permittivity of the PDCs without decreasing the conduction loss of the composites. The effective absorption band (lower than −10dB) of the metamaterial structure made by the prepared ceramic composites exceeds 12 GHz at the frequency range of 2–18 GHz from room temperature (RT) to 1000 °C, revealing a stable high temperature EMW absorption. The metamaterial structure shows good absorption in low frequency range at high temperatures, almost covering the entire S band from RT to 700 °C. The average EM absorption of the ceramic composites is lower than −15dB in the range of 2–18 GHz from RT to 1000 °C. The lowest reflection loss (RL) of the metamaterial is −45dB at 1000 °C. This study successfully address the challenge of simultaneously keeping impedance matching and retaining the strong attenuation of ceramic composites, greatly widening the high temperature EMW absorption band of PDC composites.