Enhanced electromagnetic microwave absorption properties of SiCN(Fe) ceramics produced by additive manufacturing via in-situ reaction of ferrocene

SiCN(Fe) ceramics with excellent electromagnetic wave (EMW) absorption performance were successfully prepared from a preceramic polymer doped with ferrocene. Additive manufacturing (Digital Light Processing), providing enhanced structural design ability, was employed to fabricate samples with complex architectures. During pyrolysis, ferrocene catalyzed the in-situ formation of a large amount of turbostratic carbon, graphite and SiC nanosized phases, which formed carrier channels in the electromagnetic field and increased the conductivity loss. Meanwhile, it also increased the dipole polarization, interface polarization and the dielectric properties of the material, which finally enhanced the EMW absorption capacity of SiCN(Fe) ceramics. When containing 0.5 wt% ferrocene, the material showed good performance with EAB 4.57 GHz at 1.30 mm, and RLmin −61.34 dB at 2.22 mm. The RLmin of 3D-SiCN-0.5 ceramics was −6 dB, and the RL of the X-band was lower than −4 dB at 2 mm.