Investigation into Return Loss Characteristic of Graphene Oxide/Zinc Ferrite/epoxy composite at X-band frequency

Yi Lin  Chan; Kok Yeow  You; Mohd Zul Hilmi  Mayzan; Mohamad Ashry  Jusoh; Zulkiﬂy  Abbas; Fahmiruddin  Esa

doi:10.6180/jase.202012_23(4).0003

Investigation into Return Loss Characteristic of Graphene Oxide/Zinc Ferrite/epoxy composite at X-band frequency

Physics

Yi Lin Chan¹, Kok Yeow You², Mohd Zul Hilmi Mayzan¹, Mohamad Ashry Jusoh³, Zulkiﬂy Abbas⁴, and Fahmiruddin Esa This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.¹

¹Material Physics Laboratory, Department of Physics and Chemistry, Faculty of Applied Sciences and Technology, Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia, 84600 Pagoh, Muar, Johor, Malaysia
²Radar Laboratory, School of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 Skudai, Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia
³Faculty of Industrial Sciences and Technology, Universiti Malaysia Pahang, Lebuhraya Tun Razak, 26300 Gambang, Kuantan, Pahang, Malaysia
⁴RF Microwave Laboratory, Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, 43400 Seri Kembangan, Selangor, Malaysia

Received: May 9, 2019
Accepted: November 5, 2019
Publication Date: December 1, 2020

Copyright The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are cited.

Download Citation: ||https://doi.org/10.6180/jase.202012_23(4).0003

ABSTRACT

Composite absorbing material is a branch of study that relates electromagnetic compatibility to radio and microwave frequency applications. Thus, many researchers have been made to focus on the composite fabrication and its characteristic of microwave signal performance. Generally, a light weight, high absorption and low cost absorber is highly demanded. Therefore, this work aims to investigate the return loss (RL) characteristics of graphene oxide/zinc ferrite/epoxy composite in the range of frequency 8.2 GHz to 12.4 GHz. The structural patterns of graphene oxide (GO) and Zn ferrite (ZnFe₂O₄) were confirmed by X-ray diffraction (XRD). Surface morphologies of the composites were characterized by Coxem Table Top SEM equipped with an energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) system and the tracing elements were identified. The bulk density of ZnFe₂O₄could be reduced by addition of GO based on the measurement results. Electromagnetic properties were calculated using Nicolson-Ross-Weir (NRW) conversion technique based on measured S-parameters by vector network analyzer (VNA). Complex relative permittivity increases as the GO content increases due to the increment of dipolar polarization whereas a minor change occurred in permeability. Generally, the dissipation factor happens in the range of 10 – 11 GHz for both properties. A minimum RL is found to be -12.7 dB at 10.5 GHz with 2.35 mm for 3-GO-ZnFe₂O₄ composite sample. The RL performance of the sample could be tuned as low as -55 dB using higher thickness samples.

Keywords: Graphene oxide; Zinc ferrite; Composite materials; Return loss; Electromagnetic properties

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