Fe3O4 nanoparticles decorated on a CuS platelet-based sphere: a popcorn chicken-like heterostructure as an ideal material against electromagnetic pollution

Xiaodong Sun; Mingxu Sui; Guangzhen Cui; Ling Li; Xiaopeng Li; Xuliang Lv; Fan Wu; Guangxin Gu

doi:10.1039/c8ra03015d

Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles decorated on a CuS platelet-based sphere: a popcorn chicken-like heterostructure as an ideal material against electromagnetic pollution

RSC Adv. 2018 May 14;8(31):17489-17496. doi: 10.1039/c8ra03015d. eCollection 2018 May 9.

Authors

Xiaodong Sun¹, Mingxu Sui¹, Guangzhen Cui¹, Ling Li¹, Xiaopeng Li², Xuliang Lv¹, Fan Wu³, Guangxin Gu⁴

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Science and Technology on Electromagnetic Environmental Effects and Electro-optical Engineering, The Army Engineering University of PLA Nanjing 210007 P. R. China xllu1957@126.com.
² National University of Defense Technology Xi'an 710106 P. R. China.
³ School of Mechanical Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology Nanjing 210094 P. R. China wufan@njust.edu.cn wufanjlg@163.com.
⁴ Department of Materials Science, Fudan University Shanghai 200433 P. R. China Guangxingu@fudan.edu.com.cn.

Abstract

Electromagnetic irradiation has caused environmental pollution and harmful effects on human health. The use of effective materials to attenuate electromagnetic energy is urgently required. In this study, Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles (NPs) decorated on a CuS platelet-based sphere (CuS/Fe₃O₄) with popcorn chicken-like micromorphology were synthesized through a solvothermal deposition method. The effects of reaction temperature and quantity of Fe₃O₄ NPs on the heterostructures, morphologies and electromagnetic absorption (EA) properties of the heterostructures were investigated. CuS/Fe₃O₄ heterostructures exhibited remarkable enhancement in comparison with pure Fe₃O₄ NPs and the CuS platelet-based sphere. With the contribution from dielectric and magnetic losses, a CuS/Fe₃O₄ heterostructure-loaded composite could achieve a minimum reflection loss (RL) of -61.32 dB at 14.00 GHz and an effective EA bandwidth (≤-10 dB) of 4.15 GHz at a thickness of only 1.5 mm simultaneously. The current study indicates that the CuS/Fe₃O₄ heterostructures can potentially be applied as advanced electromagnetic absorbers.