Synergistic magnetic/dielectric loss of Fe₃Si/SiC composites for efficient electromagnetic wave absorption

It is confirmed that the multi-component strategy of combining magnetic and dielectric components with different dielectric properties is still challenging to achieve efficient electromagnetic wave (EMW) absorbing (strong absorption and a broad effective absorption bandwidth at a low filling level). Herein, a magnetic/dielectric multi-component of Fe₃Si/SiC composites is constructed via an in-situ carbothermal reduction strategy. The heterogeneous magnetic/dielectric multi-component benefit to superior EMW absorption performance through forming multiple polarizations, magnetic loss, and dielectric loss effects. Especially, when the carbothermal reduction temperature is 1400 °C, the prepared Fe₃Si/SiC composites exhibit the best EMW absorption performance at a very low filler loading of 10 wt%, with a minimum reflection loss (RL_min) of −61.67 dB and an effective bandwidth (EAB) for RL_min < −10 dB reaches 6.96 GHz. Additionally, the radar cross section (RCS) can be reduced to 17.08 dB m² and the RCS value is completely lower than −5.98 dB m² in the range of −60° to 60°, which signified the high attenuation performance of radar wave. This work guides to design an efficient EMW absorber with lightweight and strong absorption.