Electroless deposition of Cu dendrites decorated with ZnO rods

Abstract

In this paper, copper dendrites decorated with ZnO rods have been electrolessly deposited on brass substrate by a simple galvanic replacement method. SEM images show that these copper dendrites possess a pronounced trunk and highly ordered branches distributed on both sides of the trunk. Meanwhile, both the trunk and branches are decorated with ZnO rods. The diffusion-limited aggregation (DLA) model has been used to explain the fractal growth of Cu dendritic structures. This method provides a facile route to the synthesis of copper dendrites with ZnO, which can be extended to the preparation of other forms threedimensional (3-D) metal structures or metal/ZnO composites by modifying electrolyte parameters such as composition, concentration, pH and temperature.

Iron-assisted electroless deposition reaction for synthesizing copper and silver dendritic structures

“…Most of the hierarchical, complex Cu and Ag structures that have been reported so far have mainly been simple dendrites composed of several generations of branches with self-similarity. The methods used for Cu and Ag dendrite synthesis include electrodeposition, [15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23] electroless deposition, [24][25][26][27][28] hydrothermal synthesis, 29,30 etc.…”