Conductive polymer-decorated lanthanum chromate with remarkable electromagnetic wave absorption properties

To solve the problem of electromagnetic (EM) wave pollution and improve the stealth capabilities of national defense weapons and equipment, it is particularly important to develop brilliant EM wave absorbing materials. In this work, LaCrO3/PANI and LaCrO3/PPY composites were synthesized by in situ chemical oxidative polymerization. The introduction of conductive polymer (PANI or PPY) significantly improves the EM wave absorption properties of the composite compared with those of pure LaCrO3. Especially, sample LaCrO3/PANI-4 obtained an effective absorption bandwidth of 5.8 GHz, covering almost the entire Ku band, at a thickness of only 2.5 mm. While sample LaCrO3/PPY-2 shows a minimum RL value of - 45 dB with a matching thickness of 3 mm. Noteworthy, the effective absorption bandwidth of samples LaCrO3/PPY-2 and LaCrO3/PPY-3 can achieve 83.5% and 85.9% coverage of the 1-18 GHz band range, by adjusting the matching thicknesses. As a result, LaCrO3/PANI and LaCrO3/PPY composites are promising to be effective EM wave absorbers with wide application prospects on account of their unique superiorities.