Silver-coated glass fibers prepared by a simple electroless plating technique

Silver-coated glass fibers have been successfully fabricated using a simple electroless silver plating. The structures of the silver/glass fiber composites were characterized by X-ray diffraction, high-resolution transmission electron microscopy, and scanning electron microscopy, respectively. The morphology investigation showed that the silver coatings were compact and continuous. The minimum volume resistivity could reach 4.53 × 10^?4 Ω cm, suggesting excellent electric conductivity. It was found that the quality of silver deposition was influenced by dosage of ammonia solution and plating temperature. Ammonia solution served as complexing reagent and supplied an alkaline media, and higher temperature easily led to metallic oxidation. The current method is simple-handle, inexpensive, large production, and the obtained silver/glass fibers can be used as fillers to fabricate electromagnetic wave shielding materials.