Recent progress in smart electromagnetic interference shielding materials

With the rapid advancement of the intelligent era, intelligent electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding devices are receiving more and more attention due to their advantages in environmental self-adaption response. Accordingly, appropriate EMI shielding materials are crucial to blocking harmful electromagnetic radiation and passing serviceable electromagnetic waves. Smart EMI shielding materials that can dynamically adjust their EMI shielding effectiveness (SE) in response to specific application requirements and environmental changes are extremely advantageous in both military and civil areas. To date, materials with adjustable EMI SE for various responses have been developed. This review pays special attention to smart materials with tunable EMI SE. The design strategies, mechanism and recent progress of smart EMI shielding materials are discussed together with different stimuli responses, including compression strain, tensile strain, chemical reagent, shape memory, phase transition and crossover angle change-induced responses. The review ends up to discuss challenges and perspectives for smart EMI shielding materials.