WS₂ nanosheets anchored on N-doped carbon fibers for superior electromagnetic wave absorption

The carbon fiber three-dimensional (3D) network structure causes conduction loss due to the induced current under an electromagnetic (EM) field, while it can serve as a substrate for the growth of other materials to construct carbon fiber-based composites. Usually, introducing other dielectric loss materials on the carbon fiber surface can adjust the EM parameters and impedance matching, and enhance the loss ability. N-doped carbon fibers anchored by WS₂ nanosheets (NCFs@WS₂) are reported in this work. When the filling ratio in paraffin is 10 wt%, the maximum reflection loss (RL) value reaches −81.1 dB at 3.5 mm. Additionally, the maximum effective absorption bandwidth (EAB) value reaches 6.24 GHz (9.44 ∼ 15.68 GHz) when the thickness is 3.0 mm. The introduction of WS₂ nanosheets not only enhances the multiple scattering of EM waves, but also improves the interfacial polarization loss and dipole polarization loss. Therefore, the superior EM wave absorption performance of NCFs@WS₂ is attributed to the good impedance matching, as well as the synergistic effect of conduction loss and polarization loss. This work enriches the research on carbon fiber-based composites and their EM wave absorption performance.