Development of an efficient bi-layer absorber based on WSe₂ and LaCoO₃ nanopowders for X-band frequency: Computational and experimental validation

Herein, monolayer and bilayer absorbers were designed to investigate the microwave absorption characteristics of LaCoO₃ and WSe₂ nanomaterials. WSe₂ monolayer sample showed better absorption capabilities as compared to LaCoO₃ single-layer sample. The microwave absorption effectiveness of bilayer absorbents was scrutinized using a simulation approach. The simulation results demonstrated that a bilayer absorber composed of LaCoO₃ as the bottom layer (0.5 mm thickness) and WSe₂ on the top layer (1.5 mm thickness) can obtain a minimum reflection loss (RL_mini) of −42.5 dB with an effective absorption bandwidth (EAB) of 2.8 GHz (12.4 GHz–9.6 GHz) at 10.8 GHz. Simulation predictions and experimental findings were juxtaposed; which accord with one another quite well. The findings demonstrate that the exceptional microwave absorption performance of the bilayer absorber may be attributed to its layered architecture. Our study presents a simple synthetic method and new perspectives on engineering a bilayer absorber with simulation and experimental justification.