Microwave absorption performance of magnetic Fe–Ni–P nanoparticles electrolessly plated on hollow glass microspheres

Magnetic Fe–Ni–P nanoparticles have been successfully fabricated on hollow glass microspheres via electroless plating for the application of lightweight microwave absorbers. The resultant materials were characterized by field emission-scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), energy dispersive X-ray (EDX), X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD), vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) and vector network analyzer. The results show that compact and uniform Fe–Ni–P nanoparticles with the average diameter of about 150 nm have been successfully plated on the hollow glass microspheres. The plated microspheres exhibit excellent soft magnetic characteristics with high saturation magnetization and low coercivity, and the soft magnetic characteristic behaves better with the increasing of iron content in the coatings. Microwave absorption performance shows the maximum reflection loss of the composite powder reaches −49.2 dB at the frequency of 7.7 GHz with the thickness of 5 mm, and the bandwidth with the reflection loss less than −20 dB exceeds 2.2 GHz.

► Fe–Ni–P nanoparticles have been fabricated on hollow glass microspheres.
► The Fe–Ni–P coating is compact and uniform with an average size of 150 nm.
► Plated powders exhibit better soft magnetic characteristic as Fe content increases.
► Plated powders exhibit excellent microwave absorption performance.