Excellent microwave absorption performances of high length-diameter ratio iron nanowires with low filling ratio

Abstract Reducing the filling content of high-density ferromagnetic particles is a key prerequisite for obtaining lightweight absorbers. To this end, large iron nanowires (Fe NWs) with high length-diameters, uniform length of approximately 21 μ m and diameters of approximately 60 nm were synthesized through a facile magnetic field-induced in situ reduction method without templates and surfactants. The phase structures, and micromorphology of the high-aspect-ratio Fe NWs were analyzed, and the electromagnetic properties of Fe NWs-paraffin composites were measured with a vector network analyzer at 2–18 GHz. The Fe NWs-paraffin composite with a low filler loading also exhibited satisfactory microwave absorption performance, and the composites filled with 20 wt.% of as-prepared Fe NWs shows a minimum reflection loss (RL min ) of −44.67 dB at 2.72 GHz and effective absorption bandwidth (EAB) with reflection loss below −10 dB reached 8.56 GHz at a layer thickness of 1.42 mm. At a thickness of 3 mm, the RL min value and EAB (RL ⩽ −10 dB) reached −29.74 dB and 3.28 GHz (3.84–7.12 GHz), respectively. This study suggests that Fe NWs with high-aspect-ratios have promising microwave absorbing applications, and provides a good reference for the preparation of ferromagnetic metal-based lightweight electromagnetic wave-absorbing materials.