Materials Chemistry and Physics 105 (2007) 268272

Double-layer microwave absorber based on

ferrite and short carbon fiber composites
Guozhu Shen a, , Ming Xu b , Zheng Xu a
a School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China
b School of Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing 210094, China
Received 27 September 2006; received in revised form 16 April 2007; accepted 19 April 2007

Abstract
Solgel method was used to prepare M-type BaFe12 O19 and W-type BaCo2 Fe16 O27 hexaferrites. Electromagnetic parameters of the ferrites
composites and M-type ferrite composite filled with short carbon fiber were measured at Ku waveband, and their reflectivity was calculated
according to transmission-line theory, respectively. Based on the above calculation, double-layer absorbers of thickness d = 2 mm containing W-
type ferrite composite and M-type ferrite composite filled with short carbon fiber were designed, and their microwave absorption properties were
predicted. The results of prediction show that the absorber whose inner layer is W-type ferrite composite and thickness of each layer is 1 mm has
excellent microwave absorption properties. The bandwidth less than 10 dB of the double-layer composite reached 3.2 GHz, and peak value is
22.0 dB at about 12.7 GHz.
2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Ferrite composite; Short carbon fiber; Absorption properties; Double-layer absorber

1. Introduction teristics of ferrites and dielectric characteristics of short carbon

The development of microwave absorbing materials con-
tinues to attract much attention because of the increasing
communications equipments and the essential part of a stealth
defense system for all military platforms. Various electro-
magnetic wave absorbing materials can be designed by using
the dispersion characteristic of the complex permittivity and
permeability [1,2]. Ferrite is one of materials used for electro-
magnetic wave absorber. A number of investigations have been
reported for studying the effect of composition on electromag-
netic wave absorption properties [37]. However, microwave
absorber which only uses ferrite cannot meet wideband absorp-
tive need. In the study, we synthesized W-type BaCo2 Fe16 O27
and M-type BaFe12 O19 hexaferrites powders adopting citrate
solgel method. At the same time, we designed M-type ferrite
composite filled short carbon fiber (length of 3 mm) to achieve
larger dielectric loss [810]. Based on better microwave absorp-
tion properties of the above ferrite composites, we made a new
double-layer microwave absorber combining magnetic charac-
Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 21 65983469.
E-mail address: shengz3@126.com (G. Shen).
fiber to achieve wideband absorption, and their microwave
absorption properties were evaluated.
2. Experimental procedure
M-type BaFe12 O19 and W-type BaCo2 Fe16 O27 hexaferrites were prepared
by citrate solgel technique. The starting materials used were Ba(NO3 )2 ,
Fe(NO3 )3 9H2 O, Co(NO3 )6H2 O and citric acid (all are A.R. and from
Shanghai Chemical Reagent Corporation). In a typical procedure for the prepa-
ration of BaFe12 O19 and BaCo2 Fe16 O27 , firstly, stoichiometric amounts of
nitrates (the initial molar ratio was Ba(NO3 )2 :Fe(NO3 )3 9H2 O = 1:12 for prepar-
ing BaFe12 O19 and Ba(NO3 )2 :Co(NO3 )6H2 O:Fe(NO3 )3 9H2 O = 1:2:16 for
preparing BaCo2 Fe16 O27 ) were dissolved in distilled water. A stoichiometric
amount citric acid solution was added to the salts solution. Then pH of the solu-
tion was adjusted to 7.0 using ammonia. The solution were evaporated at 80 C
for 3 h, then heated at 100 C to produce dry gel. The obtained precursor was
pre-sintered at 450 C for 3 h, and finally calcined at 900 C for M-type ferrite
and 1250 C for W-type ferrite for 4 h, respectively.
The rectangular waveguide method (using Agilent E8363B network ana-
lyzer) was employed to determine the electromagnetic parameters (complex
permittivity and permeability) at Ku waveband (12.418 GHz). The ferrite and
epoxy resin composites with 60% of ferrite by weight were used for preparing
the rectangular waveguide plate. At the same time, M-type BaFe12 O19 ferrite,
short carbon fiber (T700) and epoxy resin composites with 60% of ferrite and
0.2% of carbon fiber by weight was also used to prepare the rectangular waveg-
uide plate to determine their complex permittivity and permeability. The carbon
fiber composite were prepared by a mini-mixer, and mixing time is about 8 min.

0254-0584/$ see front matter 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.matchemphys.2007.04.056
 G. Shen et al. / Materials Chemistry and Physics 105 (2007) 268272
Fig. 1. EM micrographs of ferrites particles: (a) TEM micrograph of M-type ferrite; (b) SEM micrograph of W-type ferrite.
3. Results and discussion
The morphology of the ferrite particles is examined by TEM
(Hitachi H-800) and SEM (Hitachi S-2360N). Fig. 1(a) is the
crystal grain TEM micrograph of M-type ferrite, which shows
the average size is about 80 nm. Fig. 1(b) is the crystal grain
SEM micrograph of W-type ferrite. The perfect hexagonal crys-
tal grains can be observed in the micrograph. They are separated
from one another, and the size of particles is about 35 m.
Please refer to Ref. [11] about morphological controlling of fer-
rites particles prepared by solgel method. SEM micrograph of
carbon fibers T700 is provided in Fig. 2, which shows diameter
of the carbon fibers is about 7.5 m and their dimensions are
very uniform.
3.1. Dielectric and magnetic properties
The variation of complex permittivity and permeability of
ferrite composites with frequency is shown in Figs. 3 and 4.
Fig. 3 represents the variation of real part  and imaginary part
Fig. 2. SEM micrograph of short carbon fibers T700.
269
 of complex permittivity for M-type BaFe12 O19 ferrite com-
posite (M), BaCo2 Fe16 O27 ferrite composite (W), and M-type
ferrite composite filled with short carbon fiber (MC), respec-
tively. From the figures it is found that the values of  and  for
the composite MC are the largest. It is also found that the values
of  of the ferrite composite W are higher as compared to the
ferrite composite M from Fig. 3. However, the values of  of the
ferrite composite W are slightly lower than the ferrite composite
M at Ku waveband. The dielectric properties of polycrystalline
ferrite composites arise mainly due to the interfacial polarization
and intrinsic electric dipole polarization. However, the dielectric
properties of the composite MC arise from not only polarization
of ferrite but also electric dipole polarization of short carbon fiber
[12].
From Fig. 4 it is found that the values of the real part 
and imaginary part  of complex permeability for the ferrite
composite W are higher at the whole Ku waveband as com-
pared to other two ferrite composites. Fig. 4 shows that  of
the ferrite composite W decreases with increasing frequency.
It is also observed that the ferrite composite W has two obvi-
ous peak values in the imaginary part, which is 0.42 and 0.45
at about 12.9 and 15.3 GHz, respectively. According to fer-
romagnetic theory, the permeability spectrum can be divided
into four parts: low frequency, intermediate frequency, high fre-
quency and ultra-high frequency. In high frequency spectrum
(106 < f < 1010 Hz),  descends greatly, and domain wall res-
onance and natural resonance appears one after the other or
simultaneously. The same situation is found in Fig. 4. Refer-
ring to Refs. [13,14], the domain wall resonance frequency
is lower than natural resonance frequency, so it is possible
that the first peak observed in the spectrum of  is due
to domain wall resonance, and the second peak observed in
the spectrum of  is due to natural resonance. It is also
found that the values of  and  of complex permeability
for the ferrite composite M and the composite MC are com-
parable in the full measuring frequency. The reason is that
addition of carbon fiber has no effect on magnetic properties of
composites.
270 G. Shen et al. / Materials Chemistry and Physics 105 (2007) 268272

Fig. 3. Variation of complex permittivity of ferrite composites with frequency.

Fig. 4. Variation of complex permeability of ferrite composites with frequency.

 G. Shen et al. / Materials Chemistry and Physics 105 (2007) 268272 271

Fig. 5. Sketch map of incidence of electromagnetic wave in multi-layer absorber.

3.2. Prediction of microwave absorbing properties Using Eqs. (2)(6), reflectivity for a single-layer coating is
given as
 
 r /r tan h(j(2f/c)r r d) 1 
The geometry of a multi-layer microwave absorber is shown
in Fig. 5. An electromagnetic wave with unit amplitude prop- 
R = 20 lg  . (7)
agating along the positive z-direction is incident normally on r /r tan h(j(2f/c) r r d) + 1 
the absorber and gives rise to a series of waves traveling in the Fig. 6 shows the microwave absorption curves of a single-
positive and reflected waves traveling the negative z-direction layer coating of thickness d = 2 mm for the ferrite composite W,
within the layers. ferrite composite M and composite MC. From the figure it is
Let di , i and i denote the thickness, complex intrinsic observed that reflecting loss of the ferrite composite M is worse.
impedance and propagation constants of the ith layer, respec- However, absorption properties of the composite MC which is
tively (i = 1, 2, 3, . . ., n). 0 , 0 are the permittivity and filled into short carbon fiber are improved obviously. Its reflec-
permeability of free space. The conductivity for individual layers tivity decreases with increasing of frequency before 13.3 GHz,
() of the absorber is assumed to be zero. and begins to increase gradually after the frequency. The reflec-
According to transmission-line theory [1517], the wave tivity is about 11.0 dB at 13.3 GHz, and 4.2 dB at 18 GHz.
impedance Zi for the ith layer is given by Absorbing bandwidth less than 10.0 dB is 1.4 GHz, which is
Zi1 + i tan h(i di ) from 12.7 to 14.1 GHz. The reason that absorbing properties of
Zi = i , (1) the composite MC are better than the composite M is that short
i + Zi1 tan h(i di )
conductive carbon fiber acted as electric dipoles can resonance
where i and i are given as with incident wave besides magnetic loss. It is found that absorp-
 tion properties of composite W are excellent from the figure. The
ri
i = 0 , (2) reflectivity is nearly lower than 10.0 dB before 16.5 GHz, and
ri the absorbing bandwidth less than 10.0 dB reaches 4.1 GHz.
2f For the composite W, two obvious absorbing peaks can also be
i = j ri ri , (3)
c
where 0 is the characteristic impedance of the free space and
ri , ri are the relative complex permittivity and permeability of
the ith layer, respectively.
Since the microwave absorber is on a metal conductor, the
impedance of the short-circuited first layer is given by
Z1 = 1 tan h(1 d1 ), (4)
where 1 and 1 are intrinsic impedance and complex propaga-
tion constants of the first layer.
Using Eqs. (1)(4), the overall reflection coefficient for a
multi-layer absorber at an air-absorber interface is given as
 
 Zn 0 
=  . (5)
Zn + 0 
Thus, the reflectivity of the incident electromagnetic wave
normal to the planar multi-layer structure can be expressed as
R = 20 lg| | (6) Fig. 6. Absorption curves for single-layer coatings.
272 G. Shen et al. / Materials Chemistry and Physics 105 (2007) 268272
Fig. 7. Absorption curves for double-layer absorbers.
found from Fig. 6, and the two peaks well correspond to the
peaks of  of complex permeability of the composite W. It can
be explained that reflecting loss of ferrite composite W mainly
arises from magnetic loss.
To achieve higher reflecting loss, double-layer absorbers
of thickness d = 2 mm composed of the composite W and
MC were designed and their reflecting loss were calculated
based on their own better microwave absorption properties
and Eqs. (1)(6). The results are shown in Fig. 7. Absorption
curves show that absorption of double-layer absorber whose
thickness d = 1 mm of each layer is different according to their
different combination. The absorbing loss of double-layer
absorber whose inner layer is composite MC (MC1.0W1.0)
is worse. The reflectivity is higher than 6 dB at the whole
Ku waveband. On the contrary, the absorbing loss is excellent
when the composite W is used as inner layer (W1.0MC1.0).
The double-layer absorber provides higher absorption than
any of single-layer absorber. Absorbing bandwidth less than
10.0 dB can reach 3.2 GHz which is from 12.4 to 15.6 GHz,
and absorbing peak value is 22.0 dB at about 12.7 GHz.
4. Conclusion
In this paper microwave absorption properties of single-
layer ferrite composites including W-type ferrite composite,
M-type ferrite composite and M-type ferrite composite filled
with short carbon fiber were studied, respectively. Double-layer
microwave absorbers composed of W-type ferrite composite
and M-type ferrite composite filled with short carbon fiber
were designed based on their own better absorption prop-
erties. It is concluded that addition of short carbon fiber
can largely improve microwave absorption properties of M-
type ferrite composite, and the absorption of double-layer
absorbers depend on the combination of different layer. The
absorption is excellent when the W-type composite is used
as inner layer. Absorbing bandwidth less than 10 dB can
reach 3.2 GHz, and absorbing peak value is 22.0 dB at about
12.7 GHz.
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