Selective electroless plating of 3D-printed plastic structures for three-dimensional microwave metamaterials
- Journal:
- Applied Physics Letters
- Published:
- DOI:
- 10.1063/1.4986203
- Affiliations:
- 2
- Authors:
- 5
Research Highlight
A shiny solution for 3D printed plastics
© Westend61/Getty
Submerging
3D printed plastics in silver nitrate is a cheap and easy way to coat plastics
in a metallic film.
Plastic
is the most common material used in 3D printing, but as it’s an insulator, the
printed shapes have limited uses. Coating plastic with metal can increase its
potential uses, but it is difficult to uniformly cover the entire surface of
complex 3D shapes.
A
team including researchers from Okayama University dipped printed
plastic in a solution of tin chloride to prepare the surface to attract metals.
They then submerged the shapes in
liquid silver nitrate and found that silver coated the entire surface. When they
blasted the shiny surface with microwaves, they found it reflected more than 85
per cent of the radiation.
Such simple solutions could enable the quick and
easy production of 3D printed waveguides — tiny tubes that funnel microwaves — or
antennas for use in communication.
References
- Appl. Phys. Lett. 111, 183102 (2017). doi: 10.1063/1.4986203
Institutions | Authors | Share |
---|---|---|
Okayama University, Japan | 1.00 |