Exploring the feasibility of development of nanomaterial-based microwave absorbers

Advancement in the use of microwave electronics by the wireless devices, networks' server and switches, wireless antenna systems, and mobile phone base station potentially increased the radio-frequency interference. Effective elimination of this electromagnetic pollution is very necessary for proper working of electronic equipments. Microwave absorbers serve the above purpose leading to have enormous commercial and defence applications, for antenna shielding and laboratory testing of antenna. Researchers are, therefore, paying much attention on the study and fabrication of different materials and their shapes so as to use them as an absorber which ideally exhibits properties such as (1) strong absorption; (2) minimize the reflection of microwaves at air to absorber interface; (3) broader bandwidth; (4) low weight and thickness; (5) ignition at very high temperature; (6) frequency tunability; and (7) transparent and cost effective. In this paper, absorber designs based on materials and geometries proposed by number of researchers have been extensively reviewed. The preamble presented here can be explored to design novel absorbers combining material and geometry-based designs for enhanced performance to meet the future challenges.