Highly Flexible Ti 3 C 2 T x MXene/Waterborne Polyurethane Membranes for High-Efficiency Terahertz Modulation with Low Insertion Loss

• Published in: ACS applied materials & interfaces Vol. 15; no. 5; pp. 7592 - 7601
• Main Authors: Feng, Tangdong, Hu, Yiwen, Chang, Xue, Huang, Wanxia, Wang, Daoyuan, Zhu, Hongfu, An, Tianyu, Li, Wenping, Meng, Kun, Lu, Xueguang, Roul, Basanta, Das, Sujit, Deng, Hua, Zaytsev, Kirill I, Zhu, Li-Guo, Shi, Qiwu
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 08.02.2023
• Subjects: strain; modulation; flexible; terahertz; MXene
• ISSN: 1944-8244; 1944-8252
• DOI: 10.1021/acsami.2c21031

The dynamic control of terahertz (THz) wave transmission on flexible functional materials is a fundamental building block for wearable electronics and sensors in the THz range. However, achieving high-efficiency THz modulation and low insertion loss is a great challenge while maintaining the excellent flexibility and stretchability of the materials. Herein, we report a Ti C T MXene/waterborne polyurethane (WPU) membrane prepared by a vacuum-assisted filtration method, which exhibits excellent THz modulation properties across stretching. The hydrophilic Ti C T MXene and WPU enable the uniform 3D distribution of Ti C T MXene in the WPU matrix. Particularly, the stretchability with the maximum strain of the membranes can reach 200%, accompanied by dynamic tuning of THz transmittance for more than 90% and an insertion loss as low as -4.87 dB. The giant THz modulation continuously decreases with MXene content per unit area, accompanied by a lower density of the MXene interface and diminished THz absorption during stretching. Such a design opens a pathway for achieving flexible THz modulators with a high modulation depth and low insertion loss, which would be used for THz flexible and wearable devices.