Journal of the Korean Physical Society, Vol. 48, No. 6, June 2006, pp.

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RF and Microwave Noise Suppression In a Transmission Line Using

Fe-Si-Al/Ni-Zn Magnetic Composite Films
J. W. Lee, Y. K. Hong, K. Kim and J. Joo
Department of Physics, Korea University, Seoul 136-701

Y. W. Yoon, S. W. Kim, Y. B. Kim and K. Y. Kim

Korea Institute of Science and Technology, Seoul 136-791
(Received 22 November 2005)
Radio-frequency (RF) and microwave noise suppression by using magnetic composite films on a
microstrip line (MSL) was studied in the frequency range from 50 MHz to 13.5 GHz. The MSL was
composed of a Cu transmission line, dielectric materials, and a Cu substrate. The Fe-Si-Al/Ni-Zn
magnetic composite films were placed on the MSL, and the reflection and the transmission characteristics were investigated. We observed that RF and microwave noise suppression caused by the
Fe-Si-Al/Ni-Zn magnetic composite films varied with the concentration ratio of the sendust (Fe-SiAl) and the Ni-Zn ferrite. The frequency dependence of the power loss due to the composite films
on the MSL was measured and the power loss increased at higher frequencies with increasing concentration of the sendust in the composites. The electromagnetic interference shielding efficiencies
of the magnetic composite films in the far-field region are also discussed.
PACS numbers: 75.70.Ak
Keywords: Magnetic composite films, EMI shielding efficiency, Noise suppression, Microstrip line, Power
loss

I. INTRODUCTION

sion with increasing concentration of the Fe-Si-Al in the

composite films.

With increasing use of semiconducting electronics and

integration of electronic components in the RF and the
microwave frequency regions, electromagnetic interference (EMI) in electronic devices and on transmission
lines should be reduced to enhance the lifetimes and
the efficiencies of the devices [15]. Various types of
conducting and magnetic materials and their composites
have been studied for suppressing electromagnetic noise
in the RF and the microwave regions [69]. The packing cases of electrical equipment for EMI shielding made
from metallic or magnetic materials have been used to
reduce electromagnetic radiation [10]. Instead using EMI
shielding packing cases, direct reduction of electromagnetic noise from the signal line or the electrical components is possible by installing non-conducting magnetic
materials with high permeability near the sources of the
electromagnetic noise, i.e., in the near-field region [6].
In this paper, we report the effects of non-conducting
Fe-Si-Al/Ni-Zn magnetic composite films on electromagnetic noise suppression by using a microstrip line (MSL)
in the frequency range from 50 MHz to 13.5 GHz. We
observed an increase in RF and microwave noise suppres E-mail:

jjoo@korea.ac.kr;
Tel: +82-2-3290-3533; Fax: +82-2-927-3292

II. EXPERIMENT
The magnetic composite films to reduce electromagnetic noise consisted of sendust (Fe-Si-Al) and Ni-Zn ferrite. A plate-like Fe-Si-Al alloy, with an average thickness of 2 m and a large aspect ratio of 20, was produced by mechanical attrition of the alloy granule powders. The average diameter of the spherically shaped
Ni-Zn ferrite powders was 1 m. Attrition of the granule powders was performed by using an attrition mill in
a hydrocarbon solvent. The plate-like powders and polymer binder were mixed in an agate mortar. The weight
ratio of the plate-like powders and polymer binder was
75 : 25. The magnetic mixtures containing the plate-like
powders and polymer binder were tape-casted. In the
dried composites films, the soft magnetic flake powders
were oriented with their planes parallel to the plane generated by shear stress. Table 1 lists the concentration
of each element for the Fe-Si-Al sendust and the Ni-Zn
ferrite.
Figure 1 shows a cross-sectional SEM image of the
various composite films of Fe-Si-Al/Ni-Zn. For the SF55

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RF and Microwave Noise Suppression In a Transmission J. W. Lee et al.

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Table 1. Concentration (wt.%) of elements in the composite of Ni-Zn ferrite and Fe-Si-Al sendust.
Ni(wt.%)
Ni(6.93)

Fe (wt.%)
Fe(variable)

Ni-Zn Ferrite (Ni-Zn Fe2 O3 )

Zn (wt.%)
Cu (wt.%)
Zn (16.6)
Cu (2.88)
Sendust
Al (wt.%)
Al (9.7)

Fe (wt.%)
Fe (45.2)

Si (wt.%)
Si (5.4)

Fig. 2. Schematic diagram of the RF and microwave noise

suppressor on the MSL connected to a VNA.

Fig. 1. Cross-sectional SEM images of the composite films

with different concentrations of the Fe-Si-Al sendust.

sample, which has the concentration ratio of 50 : 50 of

Fe-Si-Al : Ni-Zn ferrite, the Ni-Zn ferrite powders were
placed between the Fe-Si-Al layers while the F100 or the
S100 sample has the form of whole powders or whole
plate-like powders, respectively, as shown in Figure 1. It
should be noted that the thin flakes were aligned parallel
to the film plane, which reduced the eddy current [6].
The magnetic hysteresis curves were measured by using a vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM, Lake-shore
7304). The DC conductivity (DC ) of the magnetic composite films was measured by using the 4-probe method
or the van der Pauw method in order to eliminate the
contact resistance, and a Keithley 237 SMU with PC
interface programs at room temperature (RT).
Figure 2 shows the schematic diagram of the experimental setup, including the MSL with a characteristic
impedance of 50 [11,12]. Teflon (r = 2.5) or epoxy (r
= 4.5) was used for the dielectric material in the MSL.
The MSL was connected to a HP 8719ES vector network
analyzer (VNA) with a synthesized sweep oscillation and
a scattering (S)-parameter test set. S11 (reflection) and
S21 (transmission) were measured from 50 MHz to 13.5
GHz. The transmission power loss was deduced from
the equation of P (loss)/P (in) = 1 (| |2 + |T |2 ) (dB),
where S11 = 20log| |, S21 = 20log|T |, is the reflec-

Fig. 3. Magnetic hysteresis curves for the Fe-Si-Al/Ni-Zn

magnetic composite films with different concentration ratios
of ferrite and sendust.

tion coefficient defined as = (Z Z0 )/(Z + Z0 ), and

T is the transmission coefficient. The film was cut into
the 50 mm by 50 mm pieces with thicknesses of 50 m
and 100 m and were placed on the center of the MSL
while maintaining constant distance between the signal
line and sample. We measured the electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding efficiency (SE) in the far-field
region for the magnetic composite films in the frequency
range of 1 13.5 GHz by using the ASTM D4935-99
method [1317].

III. RESULT AND DISCUSSIONS

The magnetic hysteresis curves of the composite films
were measured by using a VSM in the magnetic field
range from 1000 G to 1000 G, as shown in Figure 3.
The coercivities (Hc ) of the samples, F100, SF37, SF55,

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Journal of the Korean Physical Society, Vol. 48, No. 6, June 2006

Table 2. Concentration ratio of sendust : ferrite, initial

magnetic permeability (i ), and dc conductivity (DC ) of
the composite samples.
Sample

F100
SF37
SF55
SF73
S100

Concentration Initial magnetic

ratio (wt. %) of permeability
sendust : ferrite (i ,CGS unit)
0 : 10
1.98
3: 7
3.41
5: 5
3.82
7: 3
5.28
10 : 0
7.79

DC (S/cm)

4.171010
5.721010
1.79108
4.60108
2.27105

Fig. 5. Frequency dependence of the power loss, Ploss /Pin ,

on the MSL when using the Fe-Si-Al/Ni-Zn magnetic composite films (thickness 100 m).

Fig. 4. Comparison of the (a) reflection parameter S11

and the (b) transmission parameter S21 due to the magnetic
composite films on the MSL.

SF73, and S100, were measured to be 44, 29, 28,

26, and 22 G, respectively. The remanences, Br , of the
samples, F100, SF37, SF55, SF73, and S100, were measured to be 15, 35, 39, 47, and 58 emu/cm3 , respectively.
We calculated the initial permeability (i ) of the magnetic composite films by using the slope of the magnetic
hysteresis curves, and the i s at RT are listed in Table
2. The initial permeability (i ) and the remanence (Br )
of the magnetic composite films increased as the concentration of the sendust increased. The DC (RT) of the
magnetic composite films also increased as the concen-

tration of the sendust increased [18,19].

Figure 4 compares the transmission (S21) and reflection (S11) characteristics of the MSL with and without
the Fe-Si-Al/Ni-Zn composite films. The |S11 | with the
magnetic composite samples decreased as the concentration of the sendust increased compared to that without
samples. This implies that the reflectance increased with
increasing concentration of the sendust. The periodic
minima of the reflection characteristics (S11) observed
here were caused by impedance mismatching between
the sample holder and the connector of VNA. The |S21 |
increased as the concentration of the sendust increased,
implying a reduction in the transmittance. The variations of |S11 | and |S21 | due to the loading of the samples imply that RF and microwave electromagnetic radiations from the transmission line are partially absorbed
or reflected in the near-field region by the Fe-Si-Al/NiZn composite films because of the ferrimagnetic nature
of the composite films. This is the origin for the RF
and the microwave noise suppression by the systems. It
is noted that other non-conducting and magnetic films
with reduced eddy currents are also possible for noise
reduction.
Figure 5 shows the normalized power loss (Ploss /Pin )
of the magnetic composite films with different concentrations of the sendust and the Ni-Zn ferrite and was obtained from the equation of Ploss /Pin = 1 (| |2 +|T |2 )
by using the measured S11 and S21 parameters. As the
frequency was increased up to 6 GHz, the power loss
(Ploss /Pin ) increased while the power loss (Ploss /Pin )
decreased as the frequency increased from 6 GHz to 9
GHz. The Ploss /Pin of composite films with the same
thickness ( 100 m) increased as the concentration of
the sendust increased. This results agrees with those for
DC and i [6]. Therefore, the RF and the microwave
noise suppression of the magnetic composite films studied here is proportional to the intrinsic properties of the

RF and Microwave Noise Suppression In a Transmission J. W. Lee et al.

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IV. CONCLUSION
RF and microwave noise suppression was studied by
using the Fe-Si-Al/Ni-Zn magnetic composite films on
the MSL. As the concentration of the sendust increased,
the DC and the i increased. We observed an increase
in the power loss of the systems as the concentration
of the sendust was increased. The same results were
also observed in the far-field EMI SE. RF and microwave
noise suppression on the MSL can be controlled by using
the intrinsic properties, such as the conductivity and the
permeability, of the magnetic composites, as well as the
thickness of the sample and the dielectric constant of the
background materials.
Fig. 6. Comparison of Ploss /Pin of the systems on the MSL
for different thicknesses of the samples and different dielectric
materials.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was supported in part by Korea Science
and Engineering Foundation funded by the Ministry of
Science and Technology and in part by a grant from the
Korea Institute of Industrial Technology Evaluation &
Planning funded by the Ministry of Commerce, Industry
and Energy, Republic of Korea.

REFERENCES

Fig. 7. EMI SE of the various Fe-Si-Al/Ni-Zn magnetic

composite films, as a function of frequency, in the far-field
region.

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Figure 6 compares the normalized power losses of the
composite films on the MSL for different dielectric materials and thicknesses of the films. With increasing dielectric constant of the dielectric material on the MSL, the
power loss decreased in the measured frequency range.
The power loss increased with increasing thickness of the
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Figure 7 shows the EMI SE of the magnetic composite
films (thickness 100 m) in the far-field region. The
EMI SE increased with increasing concentration of the
sendust, i.e., increasing DC and i , in the measured frequency region. The EMI SE of the magnetic composite
films increased with increasing frequency. The characteristics of the EMI shielding using the Fe-Si-Al/Ni-Zn
composites in the far-field region are qualitatively similar
with those measured by using the MSL method.

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