An electromagnetic wave absorbing material with potential application prospects—WS2 nanosheets

In this study, we report two-dimensional WS2 nanosheets successfully synthesized by simple hydrothermal method. The obtained WS2 nanosheets are very promising as electromagnetic wave absorbers. The phase composition, microstructure, electromagnetic properties and microwave absorption properties of the prepared WS2 nanosheets were characterized by XRD, SEM, TEM, XPS and vector network analyzers. Our results show that the real and imaginary parts of permittivity of WS2 prepared at 210 °C are higher than those of other samples, with maximum interfacial polarization and dielectric loss, a wide effective absorption band with a thinner thickness is obtained in the frequency range of 5.5–18 GHz. The effective absorption bandwidth can reach 12.5 GHz, the highest reflection loss of the sample wax containing 40% WS2 is –15.6 dB at a thickness of 5.5 mm, and the absolute value of RL is greater than 10 dB in the range of 2.0–5.5 mm. The results show that the prepared WS2 nanosheets have the advantages of wide bandwidth, strong absorption and light weight, and have potential application prospects in the application and development of microwave absorbing materials in the future.