Novel Radar Absorbing Materials with Broad Absorbing Band: Carbon Foams

Carbon foams were prepared by a polymer sponge replication method and their microwave absorbing properties were investigated in this paper. It was found that the electric conductivity of carbon foams increases quickly with the improvement of carbonization temperatures. Moreover, the electric conductivity of carbon foams strongly affects their microwave absorbing performances. As the electric conductivity increases from 0.02 S/m to 1.03 S/m, the dominant electromagnetic behavior of carbon foams changes from transmission to reflection with regard to the incident electromagnetic wave. The best microwave absorbing performance was achieved for the carbon foam with an electric conductivity of 0.46S/m when other parameters are fixed at constants, and absorbing values for the carbon foam exceeds 7dB almost in the whole measured frequency range of 4-15GHz, while the frequencies range for absorbing values exceeding 8dB are about 7 GHz, demonstrating a characteristic of broad absorbing bandwidth. It is to be noted that the absorbing characteristic for the carbon foam with an electric conductivity of 0.46S/m is obtained without any impedance match design, which indicates that carbon foams have the possibility to be applied as broad absorbing bandwidth RAMs.