An electromagnetic wave absorbing material has been developed that has high reflection loss at low thickness and a wide absorption band, and thus exhibits stronger performance than existing materials. It is expected that it will be utilized as an essential technology in the IT field in the future and have a large ripple effect on strengthening national defense capabilities and the defense industry.

The Korea Institute of Materials Science (KIMS, President Lee Jung-hwan) announced on the 1st that the research team led by Dr. Lee Hee-jung of the Functional Composite Materials Laboratory of the Composite Materials Research Division developed a metal-organic framework (MOF) that maximizes dielectric loss and magnetic loss in the gigahertz (GHz) high-frequency band and successfully composited it to ultimately develop a high-performance/broadband absorbing material.

Previous research has been limited to developing electromagnetic wave absorbing materials by simply utilizing materials with high conductivity and dielectric properties.

On the other hand, these materials have the disadvantage of being difficult to achieve appropriate composite permittivity and permeability due to non-uniform mixing during the composite process, which results in increased thickness and limitations in narrow-band absorption performance.

The electromagnetic wave absorbing material developed by the research team not only has improved absorption performance compared to existing materials, but also has high reflection loss and a wide absorption band at a low thickness.

Especially MOFIt is very significant that it has improved the problems of existing materials and suggested a new direction by making it possible to easily produce electromagnetic wave absorbing materials with various dielectric/magnetic losses.

The research team optimized the composition of the material to maximize electromagnetic wave absorption performance and synthesized MOF using a wet method.

After manufacturing MOF through an optimal heat treatment process, an electromagnetic wave absorbing material was produced by mixing it with a polyurethane material.

The developed electromagnetic wave absorbing material exhibited high electromagnetic wave absorption performance of -52.29 decibels (dB) (99.999% absorption) at a frequency of 10 gigahertz (GHz) and a thickness of 1.9 millimeters (mm), and in particular, at a thinner thickness of 0.9 millimeters (mm), it exhibited broadband absorption performance reaching 7.23 gigahertz (GHz).

This is a result showing a high performance improvement compared to electromagnetic wave absorbing materials developed in other countries.

MOF-based electromagnetic wave absorbing material technology can be utilized not only in stealth technology, which is a national security technology, but also in all industrial fields such as advanced electrical and electronics/autonomous driving/communication.

In particular, all industrial fields that use electromagnetic waves suffer from malfunctions due to electromagnetic interference and secondary interference, and this technology has the unique advantage of being able to prevent these, so it can be utilized as an essential technology in the next-generation IT field.

In addition, it is expected to have a significant ripple effect on strengthening national defense capabilities and the defense industry, as well as contributing to the revitalization of private enterprises.

“We aim to apply MOF materials to electromagnetic wave absorbing materials so that they can be used in all industrial fields such as stealth, electronics, autonomous driving, and communications, and to expand into the environmental and bio fields through mass production,” said Hee-Jeong Lee, a senior researcher at the Materials Research Institute, who is in charge of the research. “We expect that not only will we be able to secure import-banned technology through domestic production by developing our own original technology, but we will also be able to export it overseas in the future.”"It's different," he said.

This research result was carried out through the basic project of the Korea Institute of Materials Science with the support of the Ministry of Science and ICT. In addition, the research result was published in the world-renowned academic journal Advanced Composites and Hybrid Materials (IF: 20.1, first author Dr. Jae-Ryung Choi of Materials Research Institute, Eun-Young Cho, Ph.D. candidate) on February 5, 2024.

Meanwhile, the research team is developing electromagnetic wave technology that can respond to higher ultra-high frequency bands by further developing electromagnetic wave absorption technology using MOF. In addition, they are actively conducting research for commercialization of high value-added industries such as electromagnetic wave absorption, shielding, and heat dissipation using characteristically tailored MOF materials.