Electrospun SnO2 submicron fibers for broadband microwave absorption

Reflection loss and absorbing width are two important parameters to estimate the performance of microwave absorbing materials. Previous research has often paid much attention on the former but limited interest has been gained for the later. Here we present electrospun SnO2 submicron fibers as a broadband microwave absorbing material in this paper. SnO2 fibers and tubes were prepared by the electrospinning method, and their microwave absorption properties are investigated in detail. It is found that various Debye relaxation processes and conducting loss contribute to the attenuation of the microwave. Besides, the reflection loss is affected by the impedance match. SnO2 fibers displayed an effective absorbing width (reflection loss lower than −10 dB) of 6 GHz with the thickness of 2 mm, and an absorbing width of 14 GHz was obtained by adjusting the thickness of the absorber from 2 to 5 mm. This study thus presents a novel and promising microwave absorbing material with broad absorbing width.