Enhancement of microwave absorption bandwidth of MXene nanocomposites through macroscopic design

MXene, the new family of two-dimensional materials having numerous nanoscale layers, is being considered as a novel microwave absorption material. However, MXene/functionalized MXene-loaded polymer nanocomposites exhibit narrow reflection loss (RL) bandwidth (RL less than or equal to -10 dB). In order to enhance the microwave absorption bandwidth of MXene hybrid-matrix materials, for the first time, macroscopic design approach is carried out for TiO₂-Ti₃C₂T_x MXene and Fe₃O₄@TiO₂-Ti₃C₂T_x MXene hybrids through simulation. The simulated results indicate that use of pyramidal meta structure of MXene can significantly tune the RL bandwidth. For optimized MXene hybrid-matrix materials pyramid pattern, the bandwidth enhances to 3-18 GHz. Experimental RL value well matched with the simulated RL. On the other hand, the optimized Fe₃O₄@TiO₂-Ti₃C₂T_x hybrid exhibits two specific absorption bandwidths (minimum RL value - -47 dB). Compared with other two-dimensional nanocomposites such as graphene or Fe₃O₄-graphene, MXene hybrid-matrix materials show better microwave absorption bandwidth in macroscopic pattern.