A Through-Thickness Arrayed Carbon Fibers Elastomer with Horizontal Segregated Magnetic Network for Highly Efficient Thermal Management and Electromagnetic Wave Absorption

Multifunctional thermal management materials with highly efficient electromagnetic wave (EMW) absorption performance are urgently required to tackle the heat dissipation and electromagnetic interference issues of high integrated electronics. However, the high thermal conductivity (λ) and outstanding EMW absorption performance are often incompatible with each other in a single material. Herein, a through-thickness arrayed NiCo₂O₄/graphene oxide/carbon fibers (NiCO@CFs) elastomer with integrated functionalities of high thermal conductivity, highly efficient EMW absorption, and excellent compressibility is reported. The NiCO@CFs elastomer realizes a high out-of-plane thermal conductivity of 15.55 W m⁻¹ K⁻¹, due to the through-thickness vertically aligned CFs framework. Moreover, the unique horizontal segregated magnetic network effectively reduces the electrical contact between the CFs, which significantly enhances impedance matching of NiCO@CFs elastomer. As a result, the vertically arrayed NiCO@CFs elastomer synchronously exhibits ultrabroad effective absorption bandwidth of 8.25 GHz (9.75–18 GHz) at a thickness of 2.4 mm, good impedance matching, and a minimum reflection loss (RL_min) of −55.15 dB. Given these outstanding findings, the multifunctional arrayed NiCO@CFs elastomer opens an avenue for applications in EMW absorption and thermal management. This strategy of constructing thermal/electrical/mechanical pathways provides a promising way for the high-performance multifunctional materials in electronic devices.