Preparation and Absorbing Property Analysis of Zno-Doped Magnetic Graphene Composite Material

•The ZnO sheets and Fe3O4 balls loaded on the graphene are subjected to close overlapping and integrated growth by the ball-sheet and ball-ball interactions, forming abundant micro-interfaces and cavity structures, further promoting the wave absorbing performance, in the composites prepared by the hydrothermal method.•The change of absorbing performance after ZnO doping from the atomic level has been explored combined with material computing and testing, and the connection between macro performance and electronic structure has been formed.•The absorbing properties of composites can be adjusting by changing the content of ZnO nanoparticles, especially the attenuation capacity and impedance matching performance, and the mechanism has been explained in this paper.