Ultra-Thin LIG Film for X band EMI Shielding Applications

The development of lightweight and ultrathin materials is quite important for electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding of myriads of electrical devices, especially in the telecommunication and the aerospace industry. In this work, a novel ultrathin Laser Induced Graphene (LIG) film with total thickness of only 0.05 mm is synthesized, fabricated and tested for the EMI shielding application. The proposed LIG film, based on the customized conductive material, is fabricated using a pulsed CO
2
laser system. It is demonstrated that the fabricated LIG sample exhibits more than 10 dB total shielding effectiveness (SE
T
) in the entire X band. The ratio of SE
T
/ thickness(mm) for the fabricated LIG film is found to be greater than 200, which is phenomenally high as compared to the state of the art EMI shielding materials. Further, the electrical conductivity of the LIG film is measured and this data is utilized to perform simulation using the numerical EM simulator; the CST Microwave Studio for the SE
T
performances. A close matching is observed between the measured and the simulated SE data. The proposed synthesis scheme appears to be quite promising for design and development of lightweight EMI shielding materials, which can have wide range of applications in industry.