TiN/Ni/C ternary composites with expanded heterogeneous interfaces for efficient microwave absorption

Abstract At present, constructing composite materials with different absorbing mechanism is the popular strategy to realize the complementary and synergetic properties for electromagnetic (EM) wave absorbing materials. However, the effective magnetic response is generally struggled to achieve. Besides the composition design strategy, fully utilizing the interfacial polarization is another efficient method for the fabrication of microwave absorbing (MA) materials. In this work, the titanium nitride/nickel/carbon (TiN/Ni/C) ternary composites were fabricated through an in-situ thermal nitridation process. The EM dissipation factors can be regulated by rational design of the ternary heterogeneous interface through varying the precursor composition. The minimum reflection loss (RL) of the optimized TiN/Ni/C nanocomposite can reach −35.1 dB at 12.4 GHz and the effective absorption bandwidth (EAB) is 3.6 GHz with a thickness of 1.7 mm. The enhanced absorbing property is benefited from the effective structure design with tunable heterogeneous interface and continuous carbon matrix which would achieve promoted interfacial polarization, conductivity relaxation and the electromagnetic impedance matching. Special structures of TiN/Ni/C ternary composites played a vital role in the effective electromagnetic absorption properties, which is significant for designing efficient MA materials.