Flexible and customizable three-dimensional woven fabrics using dielectric- magnetic coupled polyamide-66 composite fibers for efficient and controllable electromagnetic wave absorption

High-performance microwave absorption materials with broad electromagnetic absorption bandwidths and scalable architectures have been increasingly demanded in the modern electric and telecommunications industries. Herein, we propose a series of large-scale microwave absorption (MA) three-dimensional (3D) woven fabrics with the customizable microwave absorption characteristics constructed using the nano-engineered carbon black (CB)-Fe 3 O 4 /polyamide-66 (PA-66) composite fibers that possess of a unique core-sheath structure. Notably, the impedance matching and microwave attenuation of the proposed 3D fabric absorbers are realized attributing to the dielectric-magnetic coupling effect of CB and Fe 3 O 4 within the constituent fibers. The overall MA performance of these 3D fabric absorbers are then optimized by strategically modulating their macroscopic woven patterns. In this study, the reflection loss ( RL ) of the 3D fabric absorbers was measured following the arch test method. In specific, at the incident angle of 60°, the minimum RL ( RL min ) of the 3D fabric absorber with the weft density of 250 picks/10-cm (3DF-250) reaches − 34.5 dB at the thickness of 1.68 mm and presents an effective absorption bandwidth ( EAB , as RL ≤-10 dB) of 4.99 GHz. Particularly, at the incident angle of 0°, the EAB of the folded 3DF-250 absorber (i.e., at the thickness of 3.36 mm) covers the entire X-band. In addition, the proposed 3D fabric absorbers show good softness (with drape coefficient of 83.1–88.8%), superior mechanical properties (i.e., an average equivalent strength of 35 MPa and fracture strain of 60%), and great air permeability (> 109 mm/s). In a word, we believe that the 3D fabric absorbers can be a strong candidate for being a viable microwave stealth material and demonstrate great application potentials for the wearable electromagnetic wave protection.