Abstract

Electromagnetic interference is the disruption of operation of an electronic device when it is in the vicinity of an electromagnetic field (EM field) in the Radio frequency (RF) spectrum that is caused by another electronic device. Laser-irradiated-iron oxide nanoparticles (10 nm) were analysed in this context in the range of 8–12 GHz (X Band). Polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) has been used as the polymer in which Fe3O4 nanoparticles have been embedded to form a fine composite. The composite has been further modified using Nd:YAG laser pulses to structurally modify the self-standing thin films and both the laser-treated and untreated films were evaluated. The electromagnetic attenuation was analyzed with the help of vector network analyzer. While all the samples showed minimum Reflection ( 0.5 dB), significant Absorption property ( 40 dB) was exhibited. The samples show the PVA response trend, while, with Fe3O4 inclusion, the range slightly shifted to lower values of frequency and towards higher Shielding Efficiency (SE). Especially, significant increase in SE was observed with laser-irradiated-Fe3O4 -PVA composites, in the range of 10.6–11.2 GHz. The results have been correlated to the structural modifications of Fe3O4 nanoparticles within the PVA matrix.