Fabricating green electromagnetic interference (EMI)
shields is
the need of the hour because strong secondary reflections in the vicinity
of the shield adversely affect the environment and the reliability
of the neighboring devices. To this end, the present work aims to
maximize the absorption-based EMI shielding through a multilayered
construct comprising a porous structure (pore size less than λ/5),
a highly conducting entity, and a layer to match the impedance. The
elements of this construct were positioned so that the incoming electromagnetic
(EM) radiation interacts with the other layers of the construct before
the conducting entity. This positioning of the layers in the construct
offers a high green shielding index (g
s) and low reflection coefficient (R ∼ 0.1)
with an exceptionally high percent absorption (up to 99%). Polyurethane
(PU) foams were fabricated using the salt-leaching technique and strategically
positioned with carbon nanotube (CNT) papers and polycarbonate (PC)-based
films to obtain symmetric and asymmetric constructs. These structures
were then employed to gain mechanistic insight into the directional
dependency of shielding performance, g
s, and heat dissipation ability. Interestingly, maximum total shielding
effectiveness (SET) of −52 dB (88% absorption @8.2
GHz) and specific shielding effectiveness/thickness (SSEt) of −373 dB/cm2g were achieved for a symmetric
construct whereas, for the asymmetric construct, the SET and SSEt were −37 dB and −280 dB/cm2g, respectively, with an exceptionally high g
s of 8.6, the highest reported so far. The asymmetricity
in the construct led to directional dependence of the absorption component
(% SEA, shielding effectiveness due to absorption) and
heat dissipation, primarily governed by the electrical and thermal
conductivity gradient, respectively. This study opens new avenues
in this field and reports constructs with an exceptionally high green
index.