Materials Engineering in Microwave Absorbers: Recent Advances and Prognosis

Abstract

Venerated microwave absorbing materials (MAMs) have emerged as pivotal contenders for groundbreaking research that are being strategically deployed to mitigate the escalating menace of electromagnetic (EM) pollution. Despite recent exhaustive cutting-edge research in this field, still significant challenges persist regarding proper comprehension and implementation of MAMs from micro and macro perspectives. Microwave absorbers (MAs) wide scale adaptability demands materials engineering centric approach that clarifies how morphology, phase, doping, and defects govern the microwave response, while defining pivotal role of the embedding medium in practical microwave absorption tuning. This review article deeply dissects the evolution of MAMs till date, with a panoramic view of all types of reported MAMs, offering a unique perspective of their mechanisms, design, and technology readiness. It clearly identifies the research gaps, and bottleneck constraints limiting wide scale adaptability of each material class MAs. Emerging MAMs challenges with an insight into future roadmap for their extensive deployment are traced. This article also highlights the concrete strategies to translate laboratory MAs into deployable technologies. The meticulous prognosis of the envisaged research direction for future generation MAMs with primary focus on development of smart, multifunction, multiband, robust (SMMR) MAs for future technology applications is ventilated to align with the upcoming era expectations for revolutionary research in the domain of MAMs.