Millimeter-Scale Percolated Polyethylene/Graphene Composites for 5G Electromagnetic Shielding

A concern regarding electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding materials with high absorption capacity was raised as fifth-generation (5G) telecommunication developed. However, current shielding materials are generally focusing on reflection. To address this breakthrough in EMI shielding materials, a high-density polyethylene (HDPE)/few-layer graphene composite millimeter (mm)-scaled percolation structure was investigated for K-band electromagnetic shielding applications. The HDPE/multilayer graphene (MLG) composite with an mm-scale percolation structure exhibits excellent electrical and thermal conductive properties and shows an absorption-dominant electromagnetic shielding effect. In particular, the best optimized EMI shielding effectiveness of the composite at 26 GHz was 71.25 dB and showed an excellent absorption-dominant shielding mechanism with an absorption coefficient of 0.78. The mm-scaled percolation structure revealed that it effectively works in the K-band rather than the X-band by optimizing multiple reflection phases by the mm-scale HDPE particle.