Graphene-Assisted Synthesis of Fe4N with Enhanced Microwave Absorption Performance

Synergistic composite design of dielectric and magnetic materials is a highly attractive strategy to attenuate an electromagnetic wave. Herein, an Fe4N/N-doped reduced graphene oxide (N-rGO) composite is synthesized with a facile solvothermal method plus nitridation process. Notably, the rGO not only provides dielectric loss, but also reduces the nitride potential during the nitridation process and promotes the phase formation of Fe4N from Fe3O4. The electromagnetic wave absorption performance of Fe4N/N-rGO is thoroughly studied and reveals that designed Fe4N/N-rGO composite has a minimum reflection loss of −53.1 dB at 14.8 GHz with a thickness of 1.6 mm. Additionally, the reflection loss value of −41.63 dB is also achieved at a thinner matching thickness of 1.38 mm. The mechanism of the enhanced microwave absorption performance is proposed and is mainly due to the synergistic electromagnetic wave absorption with compositional advantages of rGO and Fe4N as well as a proper impedance match.Graphical Abstract