Graphene aerogels have attracted extensive attention in electromagnetic protection due to lightweight and efficient microwave absorbing properties, but until now the design of its shape and structure is still a research hotspot. Herein, reduced graphene aerogel microspheres (CSA-RGO AMs) with annual ring structure with regular interlayer spacing are synthesized by wet spinning-chemical reduction-lyophilization. Due to the special chiral helical structure and electromagnetic cross-polarization, the impedance matching and attenuation ability of microspheres to electromagnetic waves are enhanced. The CSA-RGO AMs at a low load of 4 wt% can achieve the minimum reflection loss (RL_min) of − 63 dB with a thickness of 3.6 mm, and the effective absorption bandwidth (EAB) reaches 7.04 GHz. On this basis, we further obtain polyaniline@reduced graphene oxide microspheres (PANi@RGO AMs) with the same chiral helical structure through in-situ doping polymerization of polyaniline. Heterogeneous interfaces bring the interface polarization and enhance the reflection and scattering of electromagnetic waves. And the corresponding RL_min can reach − 48 dB when the thickness is only 2.8 mm, and the EAB remains 6.88 GHz. Therefore, the new strategy for constructing chiral structures proposed in this study provides a new idea for realizing high-performance electromagnetic wave absorption of graphene-based aerogel absorbers.