Heavily loaded ferrite-polymer composites to produce high refractive index materials at centimetre wavelengths

Abstract

A cold-pressing technique has been developed for fabricating composites composed of a polytetrafluoroethylene-polymer matrix and a wide range of volume-fractions of MnZn-ferrite filler (0%–80%). The electromagnetic properties at centimetre wavelengths of all prepared composites exhibited good reproducibility, with the most heavily loaded composites possessing simultaneously high permittivity (180 ± 10) and permeability (23 ± 2). The natural logarithm of both the relative complex permittivity and permeability shows an approximately linear dependence with the volume fraction of ferrite. Thus, this simple method allows for the manufacture of bespoke materials required in the design and construction of devices based on the principles of transformation optics.