Device miniaturization, higher speed and universal deployment of portable electronics made electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding crucially important. A research team led by a distinguished professor Alexander A. Balandin and research professor Fariborz Kargar, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of California – Riverside (UCR) [link to the group’s web-site: https://balandingroup.ucr.edu/], reported on the scalable synthesis of composites with graphene fillers, and testing their EMI shielding efficiency in the X-band (frequency range of 8.2 GHz – 12.4 GHz) and the extremely high frequency (EHF) band (frequency range of 220 GHz – 325 GHz). The examined frequency bands are pertinent to state-of-the-art and future communication systems. It was found that graphene composites with small graphene loading can provide excellent electromagnetic shielding of 70 dB in the sub-terahertz EHF frequency range with negligible energy reflection to the environment. The results of the testing of graphene EMI shieling materials in the sub-THz and GHz ranges have been reported in two recent publications: Z. Barani, F. Kargar, A. Mohammadzadeh, S. Naghibi, C. Lo, B. Rivera, and A. A. Balandin, “Multifunctional graphene composites for electromagnetic shielding and thermal management at elevated temperatures,” Adv. Electron. Mater., 2000520 (2020) and Z. Barani, F. Kargar, K. Godziszewski, A. Rehman, Y. Yashchyshyn, S. Rumyantsev, G. Cywiński, W. Knap, and A. A. Balandin, “Graphene epoxy-based composites as efficient electromagnetic absorbers in the extremely high-frequency band,” ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces, 12, 28635-28644 (2020). The first author of the journal papers – Zahra Barani – is an ECE Ph.D. student and researcher in the Phonon Optimized Engineered Materials (POEM) Center, directed by Balandin. 

Link to GHz paper: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/aelm.202000520  
Link to sub-THz paper: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsami.0c06729 
This research was highlighted by Nanowerk – European nanotechnology news web-site. Link: https://www.nanowerk.com/spotlight/spotid=56253.php 
Link to the POEM Center: https://balandingroup.ucr.edu/ 

Image Credit: Schematic of the graphene composite’s action as the electromagnetic interference shield. The figure is courtesy of Zahra Barani, Phonon Optimized Engineered Materials (POEM) Center, University of California, Riverside.