Preparation of copper-coated β-SiC nanoparticles by electroless plating

In this paper a nano-sized core–shell structure of β-SiC–Cu was prepared by simple electroless plating. The core–shell nanoparticles were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive spectrometry (EDS), X-ray diffraction (XRD), high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM) and selected area electron diffraction (SAED). The results show that the catalytic core structure of Ag–Sn was successfully formed on the surface of nano-SiC (n-SiC) after the activation and sensitization. In the electroless plating process, Cu nanoparticles with a size smaller than 5 nm formed firstly, and then grew together to form a continuous coating.