@article{Chen2026, 
author = {Lei Chen and Sheng-Can Yang and Qi Liu and Jia-Qi Lang and Ming-Guo Ma},
title = {Bioinspired by staggered cellular structures: 3D-printed aerogel frameworks for ink rheological, parametric optimization, and enhanced terahertz electromagnetic shielding performance},
year = {2026},
journal = {Nano Research},
volume = {19},
number = {2},
pages = {94908105},
keywords = {three-dimensional (3D) printing, terahertz electromagnetic interference shielding, MXene, rheological properties, staggered stacking structure},
url = {https://www.sciopen.com/article/10.26599/NR.2025.94908105},
doi = {10.26599/NR.2025.94908105},
abstract = {With the rapid development of terahertz (THz) technology in ultra-high-speed communication and security inspection applications, there is a growing demand for high-performance THz shielding and absorbing materials to prevent electromagnetic interference (EMI) or pollution. Natural hierarchical staggered cellular structures, such as bones and wood, feature abundant micropores/channels and interlocking staggered layered architectures. The architectural feature promotes multi-reflection and absorption of electromagnetic waves, prolonging their propagation path and strengthening wave attenuation. Inspired by this, a bioinspired strategy was proposed to fabricate multilayer-MXene (m-Ti3C2Tx)/cellulose nanofibrils (CNFs) aerogel frameworks with staggered stacking architectures via direct ink writing (DIW) three-dimensional (3D) printing technology for enhanced THz shielding and absorption performance. Through comprehensive optimization, we achieved composite inks with outstanding rheological properties and identified optimal printing parameters, enabling high-precision and stable 3D printing fabrication. The framework exhibits an excellent maximum reflection loss (RL) of 54.01 dB in the 0.5–3.0 THz range (100% qualified bandwidth) and a high absorption of 99.40%. It realizes a high green shielding index (gs), the range of gs > 9 that meets the standard for excellent green EMI shielding up to 2.5 THz. Meanwhile, it demonstrates high shielding effectiveness (SE) exceeding 40 dB across a broad gigahertz (GHz) frequency range from 3.9 to 18 GHz, particularly reaching an excellent 101.84 dB in the Ku band. This work provides a simple and efficient way to achieve outstanding THz shielding and absorption performance.}
}