Excellent improvement in the static and dynamic magnetic properties of carbon coated iron nanoparticles for microwave absorption

Carbon coated iron nanoparticles were synthesized, using a simple arc-discharge method. The morphology and the internal structure of the core/shell nanoparticles were studied, using field emission scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy. X-ray diffraction analysis showed that both magnetic α-Fe and nonmagnetic γ-Fe phases existed in the as-prepared particles. In order to improve the static and dynamic magnetic properties of the core/shell nanoparticles, the produced nanocapsules were annealed in argon atmosphere at two different temperatures. Hysteresis loops revealed that the value of the saturation magnetization (MS) increased more than 4.1 times of its original value by annealing and this led to 70% increase in the imaginary part of the permeability. Phase analysis showed that heat treatment eliminated the nonmagnetic γ-Fe phase completely. The reflection loss plots were studied for composite layers containing 20 vol% of the annealed and not annealed nanocapsules. One of the absorber layers which contained annealed nanocapsules showed at least −10 dB loss in the whole G, C, X and Ku frequency bands and the optimal absorption exceeded −37 dB at 5.8 GHz for the as-prepared sample with a thickness of 3.2 mm. The results revealed that the magnetic properties of the arc-made Fe/C core/shell nanoparticle can be improved significantly by annealing in argon.