Morphology dependent EMI shielding performance of Ag-Ni core-shell nanowires

The proposed work reports a facile chemical reduction method for synthesizing the hierarchical silver-nickel core-shell nanowire structures with controllable morphologies by varying the Ag concentration. The growth of Ni shells around the Ag core to make thorny and smooth Ag-Ni core-shell nanowires is studied for addressing electromagnetic interference (EMI). The synthesized Ag-Ni nanowires show better EMI shielding effectiveness (SE) than Ni nanowires with much-improved absorption loss (SEA). Due to high electrical conductivity (8630 S cm−1), magnetic permeability (44.1 emu/g), and heterojunction core-shell interfaces, the bimetallic nanowires flakes exhibit exceptional average EMI SE of 90.5 dB in the X-band frequency range (8–12 GHz) with a thickness of 0.11 mm, taking specific EMI SE to 822.72 dB/mm. In addition, the EMI shielding performance of the smooth Ag-Ni nanowires showed a 45% enhancement in SEA with marginal change in reflection loss (SER) compared to the thorny ones, indicating high absorption of EM waves. The unique core-shell nanowires with high aspect ratio with tunable physical properties can be ideal candidates for futuristic applications in microwave absorption and electromagnetic interference shielding.