Rational construction of porous N-doped Fe₂O₃ films on porous graphene foams by molecular layer deposition for tunable microwave absorption

Graphene-based materials with porous microstructure have attracted immense attentions due to their wide application in microwave absorption. However, constructing magnetic film with both porous microstructure and uniform pore size by using traditional methods still remains a challenge. To overcome this problem, we reported a facile strategy of molecular layer deposition (MLD) for successfully fabrication of the hybrid-architecture of porous graphene foams and nitrogen-doped porous Fe₂O₃ films. The surfaces of porous graphene foams are uniformly covered by porous Fe₂O₃ films without aggregation and the pore structures are widely distributed. The porous graphene-based composites exhibit remarkably enhanced microwave absorption performance compared to the pristine graphene foams. The minimum reflection loss value is increased by approximately 8 times, reaching −64.36 dB with a thickness of only 2.18 mm. More importantly, the absorption property can be precisely modulated by tuning the MLD cycle numbers and effective absorption bandwidth covers 3.04–18.0 GHz by adjusting the thickness from 1.0 to 5.0 mm. This work provides new insights for exploring novel and high-performance graphene-based microwave absorbents and offers a new idea to rationally design three-dimensional composites with porous magnetic films.