Investigations of Structural, Mechanical and Optical Properties of Silver Electrodeposits

Abstract

The electrodeposits of silver on velour copper underlayers from dicyanoargentate-thiocyanate solutions were obtained. The surface relief, morphology and hardness of silver deposits were studied and their dependences on deposition conditions were examined. The gloss and specular reflectance spectra in the infrared region were measured and modelled. The morphology of thin silver coatings with the thickness of about 1 μm, exhibiting good velour effect, was found to be consistent with the underlayer one. With increasing silver layer thickness, the specific morphology with smaller dimensions of surface crystallites forms and velour effect disappears. The correlation between the optical properties and dimensions of surface irregularities of silver coatings as well as velour effect was observed.