Carbon Microfiber Material for Electromagnetic (Shielding) Applications

Abstract

Electromagnetic shielding is becoming more and more important with the abundance of wireless devices. Therefore a need has arisen for more versatile, flexible and low-cost solutions for shielding. For these requirements, carbon microfiber material has been proposed for electromagnetic shielding applications. For this purpose its shielding effectiveness has been measured and modeled in a simulation environment. A parametric simulation was conducted for the material property ’conductivity’ and the results were compared to measured ones. These simulation results were also verified by the analytical solution for the shielding effectiveness and the agreement between the simulated values and analytical results demonstrated that the carbon microfiber material, though having less conductivity than the traditional metallic shields is a good candidate for electromagnetic shielding applications. Carbon microfiber not only provides comparable shielding effectiveness to a metallic shield but it can be advantageous because of its light weight, corrosion resistance and flexibility. Also, its porous nature can help with cooling of enclosed electronic circuits.