The synthesis of CoNi@SiO2 @TiO2 core-shell and CoNi@Air@TiO2 yolk-shell microspheres is reported for the first time. Owing to the magnetic-dielectric synergistic effect, the obtained CoNi@SiO2 @TiO2 microspheres exhibit outstanding microwave absorption performance with a maximum reflection loss of -58.2 dB and wide bandwidth of 8.1 GHz (8.0-16.1 GHz, < -10 dB).

A tunable response frequency is highly desirable for practical applications of microwave absorption materials but remains a great challenge. Here, hollow lightweight polydopamine@α-MnO2 microspindles were facilely synthesized with the tunable absorption frequency governed by the aspect ratio. The size of the hard template is a key factor to achieve the unique shape; the polymer layer with uniform thickness plays an important role in obtaining spindles with homogeneous size. With the aspect ratio increasing, the maximum reflection loss, as well as the absorption bandwidth (<-10 dB), increases and then decreases; meanwhile, the microwave absorption band shifts to the low frequency. The optimized aspect ratio of the cavity about the hollow polydopamine@α-MnO2 microspindles is ∼2.8. With 3 mm thickness at 9.7 GHz, the strongest reflection reaches -21.8 dB, and the width of the absorbing band (<-10 dB) is as wide as 3.3 GHz. Via electron holography, it is confirmed that strong charge accumulates around the interface between the polydopamine and α-MnO2 layers, which mainly contributes to the dielectric polarization absorption. This study proposes a reliable strategy to tune the absorption frequency via different aspect ratio polymer@α-MnO2 microspindles.

Developing microwave absorption materials with ultrawide bandwidth and low density still remains a challenge, which restricts their actual application in electromagnetic signal anticontamination and defense stealth technology. Here a series of olive-like γ-Fe O @C core-shell spindles with different shell thickness and γ-Fe O @C@α-MnO spindles with different volumes of dipolar-distribution cavities were successfully prepared. Both series of absorbers exhibit excellent absorption properties. The γ-Fe O @C@α-MnO spindle with controllable cavity volume exhibits an effective absorption (<-10 dB) bandwidth as wide as 9.2 GHz due to the chemically dipolar etching of the core. Reflection loss of the γ-Fe O @C spindle reaches as high as -45 dB because of the optimized electromagnetic impedance balance between polymer shell and γ-Fe O core. Intrinsic ferromagnetism of the anisotropy spindle is confirmed by electron holography. Strong coupling of magnetic flux stray lines between spindles is directly imaged. This unique morphology and facile etching technique might facilitate the study of core-shell type microwave absorbers.