Electroless plated of Ni-P@SiC nanowire composite for high-performance EMW absorption by tailoring impedance matching

A simple electroless nickel plating method was used to decorate SiC nanowire (SiCnw) with nano-sized Ni-P alloy particles, resulting in a Ni-P@SiCnw composite material. Ni-P@SiCnw materials with 20 wt%, 108 wt%, and 252 wt% weight gain were obtained by varying the concentration of Ni^{2 +} in the chemical plating solution. With Ni-P alloy particles weight gain of 108 wt% at 1.4 mm, the minimum reflection loss (RLmin) reached −43.38 dB, and the effective absorption bandwidth (EAB) spanned 3.73 GHz (14.28–18.0 GHz). To investigate the effect of oxidation on Ni-P@SiCnw material, Ni-P@SiCnw material was oxidized to NiO@SiCnw material at 300 °C, 500 °C and 800 °C, representing incomplete, complete, and over-oxidation, respectively. The wave-absorbing properties of the 20 wt%NiO@SiCnw material improved with increasing oxidation temperature, reaching an RLmin of −45.73 dB at 800 °C and a maximum EAB of 3.08 GHz (14.92–18.0 GHz). These findings provide valuable insights for the development of high-temperature absorbing material.