Highly ordered mesoporous 1T’ MoTe2/m-SiO2 composite as efficient microwave absorber

Transition metal dichalcogenides have shown promising electromagnetic wave absorption performance but the low conductivity of their stable phases, such as 2H, has restricted further development in their applications. In this work, a stable 1T′ MoTe2/m-SiO2 composite was successfully synthesized by a phase-tailoring chemical vapor deposition method. Highly ordered mesoporous SiO2 was selected as template due to its capability to reducing the permittivity and increasing the interfacial polarization loss through its porous structure. Different configurations of the composites were analyzed, it was found that the microwave absorption activity is determined by the content of 1T′ MoTe2. The composite prepared with a 56.78 wt% content of 1T′ MoTe2 presented an optimized reflection loss of 63.17 dB at the Ku band with 1.8 mm of thickness. Its effective absorption bandwidth was as large as 4.7 GHz at 1.8 mm in the Ku band. These findings indicate that 1T’ MoTe2/m-SiO2 composite can be applied as microwave absorbers with efficient performance. [Display omitted] •Novel 1T′ MoTe2/m-SiO2 composites have been prepared by an impregnation technique followed by a CVD reaction.•Composites prepared by this technique exhibited better performance than those obtained by mechanical mixing.•The synergistic effect exhibited by 1T′ MoTe2 and m-SiO2 greatly enhances the microwave absorption activity of the composite.