Nest-like hollow Cu-doped Co/CoO/C microspheres derived from spherical Co-ZIF with controllable microwave absorption performance

•A nest-like hollow Cu-doped Co/CoO/C absorber was successfully designed.•Nest-like hollow structure greatly improves the microwave absorption performance.•The RLmin of S700 and S600 are −52.73 dB at 2.51 mm and −60.02 dB at 1.59 mm, respectively, and the corresponding EAB are 6.16 GHz at 2.31 mm and 5.76 GHz at 1.9 mm.