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Applied Surface Science 254 (2008) 47084715 www.elsevier.com/locate/apsusc

Preparation, characterization and microwave absorption properties of electroless NiCoP-coated SiC powder
Yongjie Li, Rui Wang, Fengming Qi, Chunming Wang *
Department of Chemistry, Lanzhou University, 730000 Lanzhou, China Received 14 November 2007; received in revised form 16 January 2008; accepted 16 January 2008 Available online 20 January 2008

Abstract Silicon carbide particles reinforced nickelcobaltphosphorus matrix composite coatings were prepared by two-step electroless plating process (pre-treatment of sensitizing and subsequent plating) for the application to lightweight microwave absorbers, which were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD), vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) and vector network analyzer, respectively. The results show that NiCoP deposits are uniform and mixture crystalline of a-Co and Ni3P and exhibit low-specic saturation magnetization and low coercivity. Due to the conductive and ferromagnetic behavior of the NiCo thin lms, high dielectric constant and magnetic loss can be obtained in the microwave frequencies. The maximum microwave loss of the composite powder less than 32 dB was found at the frequency of 6.30 GHz with a thickness of 2.5 mm when the initial atomic ratio of NiCo in the plating bath is 1.5. # 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
PACS : 41.20.Gz; 61.10.Nz; 68.37.Hk; 78.40.q Keywords: Silicon carbide; Microstructure; Complex relative dielectric permittivity; Complex relative magnetic permeability; Reection loss

1. Introduction In recent years, microwave absorptive materials have attracted considerable research interest in the materials science [1,2] because of its widespread applications for many electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) purposes. A number of materials have been described, which are capable of absorbing electromagnetic radiation. However, the conventional absorptive materials such as metal powders and ferrites are quite heavy, which restricts their usefulness in applications requiring lightweight mass [3]. Moreover, those materials have difculties in increasing the permeability in GHz region because of Snoek limit for ferrites [4] or eddy current loss for magnetic metals [5]. As one of the ways to overcome these problems, the use of embedding particles (metallic, non-metallic or polymeric) in electroless deposited metals is a convenient method of preparing composite coatings, and the particles increase its mechanical and physical properties [6]. The presence of ne particles as the second phase improves the microhardness, high-

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 9318911895; fax: +86 9318912582. E-mail address: wangcm@lzu.edu.cn (C. Wang). 0169-4332/$ see front matter # 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.apsusc.2008.01.076

temperature inertness, wear and corrosion resistance of the composite coatings [79]. High wear resistance, low cost and chemical inertness of ceramic oxides, carbides and nitrides has led to their widespread use as distributed phase [8,10]. Within these ceramics SiC is a kind of useful electronic material, and has high-strength ceramic material with excellent corrosion and erosion resistance. The merits of SiC for high-temperature electronics and short-wavelength optical applications are compared. The outstanding thermal and chemical stability of SiC should enable them to operate at high temperatures and in hostile environments, and also make it attractive for high-power operation [11]. However, their application still suffers from several difculties. One problem is the low wettability between ceramics and liquid metals. In order to promote wetting between them, the ceramic surface can be modied by deposition of metal coatings using different techniques [12]. So investigations have been carried out on electrodeposited composite coatings comprising of alloy matrixes dispersed with nanoparticles, e.g. NiFenano-Si3N4, CoNinano-Al2O3, ZnNinano-SiC, NiPSiC and CoPSiC composite coatings are attractive and have been investigated before [13,14]. NiCo alloy coatings are of importance, as they possess

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high-temperature wear and corrosion resistance. Moreover, the NiCo alloy deposition is an anomalous co-deposition and the hardness of alloy increases as long as they possess fcc lattice structure. Thus it was necessary to understand the inuence of the matrix on the properties of the composites. The compositecoating is believed to combine the advantages of both NiCo alloy and nano-particulate SiC. One of the available report focuses on studying the variation in SiC content in a given Ni Co alloy obtained from Watts bath [14]. As mentioned above, a lot of research work has been carried out on the effect of operating conditions on the mechanical properties of composite coatings containing micron size SiC particles. Reports on the magnetic and microwave-absorbing properties of nano-composite coatings are scanty. In resonant absorbers of quarter wavelength, zero-reection can be obtained by access to wave impedance mating at the surface of the absorbing layer, which requires a proper combination of magnetic permeability and dielectric permittivity at a given thickness and frequency. Those material parameters in high frequencies can be controlled by use of magnetic metals (permittivity control by electrical property and permeability control by magnetic property) in a single-layered microwave absorber [15]. In the present work, the thin NiCoP lms on SiC particles were electrolessly synthesized. It was focused on understanding the inuence of Co content on magnetic and microwave-absorbing properties of composite coatings. The surface morphology and structure of NiCoP lms on SiC particles were also investigated. 2. Experimental 2.1. Pre-treatment of SiC particles The materials employed were pure SiC (97% minimum, Crystolon, Norton Silicon Carbide) which have a true density of 3.2 g/cm3. The electroless plating was performed on the particle size powders namely 200 grit, and its particle size is 74 mm. The pre-treatment of SiC particles was followed by the literature of Wang et al. [16]. 2.2. Electroless deposition process The pre-treated SiC particles were plated in an electroless nickelcobalt bath with composition listed in Table 1. The proportion of elemental powders that added to the plating bath was 10 g/L, and with continuous stirring, all of the particles were exposed to the electroless nickelcobalt solution. The powders were plated at 90 8C and the pH value adjusted to 8.0 using NaOH. The plating time was 30 min, and the samples 14
Table 1 Composition of the electroless nickelcobalt bath Nickel sulfate, hexahydrate Cobalt sulfate, heptahydrate Sodium citrate Ammonium sulfate Sodium hypophosphite, monohydrate NiSO46H2O CoSO47H2O Na3C6H5O72H2O (NH4)2SO4 NaH2PO2H2O 0.050.1 mol/L 0.050.1 mol/L 40 g/L 40 g/L 20 g/L

is plated from the plating solution in which the initial atomic ratio of NiCo is 1:2, 1:1, 1.5:1, and 2:1, respectively. 2.3. Measurements The surface morphologies of the coatings and the pre-treated SiC particles were examined using a scanning electron microscope (SEM, JSM-5600LV/KEVEX Sigma), while EDX analysis was performed to identify the metal-coating layer and its components. Phase analysis of the coating was studied from 308 to 808 using an X-ray diffraction analyzer (XRD, Rigaku D/max-2400, Cu K-a, l = 0.1514 nm). The static magnetic properties of sample were investigated by vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM, Lakeshore 7304). The sample containing 75 wt.% sample particles was made into toroidal-shaped samples with an outer diameter of 7.0 mm and inner diameter of 3.0 mm for microwave measurement. The complex permeability and permittivity of composite were measured using a vector network analyzer (Agilent E8363B) in the frequency range of 0.118 GHz. 3. Results and discussion 3.1. SEM/EDX and XRD analysis Characterization of the NiCoP-coated particles is necessary to determine the amount, chemical nature, morphology, uniformity and distribution of the metal coating on the powders. Typical surface morphologies of pre-treated SiC particles and NiCoP-coated SiC powders that were heat-treated at 400 8C for 1 h are shown in Fig. 1. SEM examination of the starting powders reveals that SiC particles exhibit predominantly angular shapes with sharp edges and show a clean, deposit-free surface (Fig. 1a). The chemical components of these particles as revealed by EDX analysis show that these particles are mainly composed of SiC. The morphology of sample 1 show uniformly distributed NiCoP coatings with spicular grains on activated SiC particle surface (Fig. 1b). Such powders are consists of a core of ceramic material and a metallic coating. In Fig. 1c the NiCoP deposits grew larger as the Co content decreased. In Fig. 1d and e the form of the electroless NiCoP deposits turned into polyhedrons. Fig. 1 clearly shows that the electroless deposits with the form of spicular grains were deposited dispersively on the surface of SiC particles in the beginning. The size of spicular grains increased more and more with the decreased Co content until they touched each other in the direction parallel to the surface of the substrate, which was attributed to the magnetic attractive force of the coated NiCo P lms. Then the electroless deposits grew only in the direction vertical to the SiC surface and their form turned into polyhedrons. The EDX analysis of samples 14 shows that these particles are primarily comprised of SiC, Ni, Co and P elements (Table 2). Contrary to expectations, the components of NiCo P alloy did not show an ideal atomic ratio of NiCo compared with the initial composition of plating bath. The reasons can be explained as follows. First of all, it can be understood from the

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Fig. 1. Surface morphologies of (a) pre-treated silicon carbide, (b) sample 1, (c) sample 2, (d) sample 3 and (e) sample 4.

thermodynamics and the kinetics of catalytic reaction. The Pdactivation procedure assured elimination of the passive condition of the SiC surfaces, making them suitable for electroless plating due to the presence of chemically deposited Pd nuclei that initiate nickelcobalt deposition, which is a key step in the entire electroless-coating process. For electroless NiCoP plating, the oxidizing and reducing reactions and their standard Gibbs free energy changes [17] can be represented as below H2 PO2 H2 O H2 PO3 2H 2e ; 2H2 PO2 4H 2e 2P 4H2 O; Ni2 2e Ni; Co2 2e Co; DG 54:0 kJ DG 48:3 kJ DG 96:5 kJ (1) DG 48:3 kJ (2) (3) (4)

reduction for Ni is larger than Co. Additionally, the catalytic activity of Ni for the reaction of (1) is better than that of Co [18]. Second, this is attributed to the fact that the electroless bath has become exhausted due to the limited amount of the NiCo plating solution compared with the large surface to be plated. In addition, the pH of the alkaline solution was altered with the progress of the plating process: during deposition, byproducts of the reaction, orthophosphite (HPO32) and hydrogen ions accumulate in the solution, affecting the chemistry of the plating bath. Such events were characterized by a reduced gas evolution from the bath and an excessive decoloration of the electroless solution.
Table 2 Ni, Co, and P content in the NiCoP alloy lms coated on SiC powders Sample number 1 2 3 4 Ni (at.%) 21 75. 68 86 Co (at.%) 51 19 27 7.1 P (at.%) 28 5.4 5.7 6.7

From the value of DG8 for each reaction, it is clear that Ni, Co and P can all reduced by sodium hypophosphite and the trend of

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Fig. 2. XRD patterns of (a) pre-treated silicon carbide and heat-treated (b) sample 1, (c) sample 2, (d) sample 3 and (e) sample 4 at 400 8C for 1 h.

Fig. 3. Hysteresis loops of samples 14 measured at room temperature.

3.2. Magnetic properties of NiCoP deposits In order to conrm the presence of NiCoP ternary alloy within the bulk of the coating, XRD analysis of the NiCoPcoated SiC particles is investigated. Fig. 2 shows ve X-ray traces related to the pre-treated SiC particles and heat-treated samples 14 at 400 8C for 1 h. X-ray diffraction patterns of the heat-treated powders (Fig. 2be) show sharp peaks centered at 2u of about 36538, signifying that this particular deposits contains a mixture of crystalline Ni3P and a-Co. The gure also shows sharp peaks corresponding to silicon carbide, as well as a noisy background, characteristic of an amorphous structure. Xray diffraction traces obtained from samples 1 to 4 showed sharp, well-dened peaks corresponding to a fully crystallized structure (Fig. 2be). The ve peaks at 2u = 36.38, 41.88, 42.78, 46.68, and 52.88 represent the well-dened peaks corresponding to diffraction from (0 3 1), (2 3 1), (3 3 0), (1 4 1), and (1 3 2) planes, respectively, of the Ni3P (JCPDS: 34-501). And the two peaks at 2u = 44.48 and 51.78 represent peaks corresponding to diffraction from (1 1 1) and (2 0 0) planes, respectively, of the a-Co (JCPDS: 01-1254). It is evident that the amorphous nature of the deposits still remains when the temperature of heat treatment is below 300 8C according to Ref. [19]. After the heat treatment at 300 8C for 1 h, XRD pattern reveals the presence of fcc nickel, bct nickel phosphide (Ni3P) and hexagonal Ni5P2 phases. It can be seen that the Ni5P2 phase disappeared, but tetragonal Ni12P5 phase was formed after annealing at 400 8C for 1 h. When the temperature of heat treatment exceeds 400 8C, the Ni12P5 phase vanished, the Ni phase and the Ni3P phase increase strongly. The higher intensity for annealed samples pattern indicates to the higher degree of crystallinity in these samples. In this paper, during the annealing process, the higher phosphorus regions were supposed to be further increased by extraction of P dissolved in nickel grains, which in turn gave rise to precipitation of the hard inter-metallic Ni3P phase, the mostprevalent phosphide in the deposits. These transformations support the earlier observation obtained by Sankara et al. [19] and Hur et al. [20]. The magnetic properties of electroless NiCoP ternary alloy deposits were studied in their as-deposited condition. The hysteresis loop obtained for as-plated electroless NiCoP deposits (samples 14) is shown in Fig. 3. The magnetic properties, viz., specic saturation magnetization (Ms), remanence (Mr) and coercivity (Hc), derived from the hysteresis loop, are given in Table 3. The shape of the hysteresis loops seems to be very similar to that exhibited by partially or totally amorphous materials and by an amorphous NiCoP lm [21,22]. It is well known that magnetic characteristics of amorphous materials are signicantly smaller than those of crystalline materials [23]. Being amorphous in nature, the electroless NiCoP deposits of the present study exhibit soft magnetic characteristics. According to Tarozaite et al. [24] the formation of certain crystallites shape, which determines high coercivity, takes place only at denite phosphorus content. The phosphorus content, necessary for the formation of grains boundaries, differs for the lms, deposited under different conditions, because of the grains with different size and shape formation. According to them, electroless NiCoP deposits exhibit a high coercivity when the phosphorus content of the deposit lies between 4 and 6 wt.%. When the phosphorus content is lower than 4 wt.%, lms of coarse crystallites are deposited, resulting in lower coercivity. If phosphorus content exceeds 6 wt.%, lms consisting of very ne grains are deposited which also leads to a decrease in coercivity. Additionally the phosphorus content in NiCoP alloys is
Table 3 Magnetic properties of electroless NiCoP ternary alloy deposits Sample number 1 2 3 4 Mr (emu/g) 1.7 0.9 0.8 0.7 Ms (emu/g) 6.8 5.2 2.9 1.7 Hc (Oe) 622 200 503 211

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17, 2.9, 3.1 and 3.7 wt.% corresponding to samples 1, 2, 3 and 4, respectively. Thus the coercivities of all samples are low and they are found to decrease and then increase with cobalt content of the deposits (Table 3). A comparison of the magnetic characteristics of electroless NiCoP deposits of the present study reveals that the specic saturation magnetization and remanence are found to increase rstly and then decrease and increase nally with increased cobalt content in the deposits (Table 3), which is due to higher magnetic moment of Co atom. However, Rivero et al. [25] report a linear increase in specic saturation magnetization with increase in cobalt content for electrodeposited NiCoP amorphous ribbons and Matsubara and Yamada [26] also report an increase in specic saturation magnetization of electroless NiCoP deposits with increased cobalt content. Therefore detailed magnetic properties need to be studied further. 3.3. Microwave absorptive properties Fig. 4 illustrates the real and imaginary parts of permittivity of samples 14, and SiC particlesolen composites. It can be seen from Fig. 4 that electroless NiCoP ternary alloy deposits of various composition show a similar variety trend and it is apparent that both e0 and e00 are sensitive to metallic behavior of Ni and Co in the deposits. The powderparafn composites exhibit that the values of real part e0 of complex permittivity decrease with increasing frequency except a resonance peak around 8 GHz. It is found that the values of both real and imaginary parts of complex permittivity of samples are higher along with increasing metallic content of Ni and Co in the deposits, which is attributed to better metallic behavior of Ni and Co atoms than P atom, but they are comparatively smaller than those observed for the metal powder or bre composites as reported in the literatures [2729]. The lower real part value of complex permittivity is a great advantage to strike a balance between permeability and permittivity, thus decreasing the reection coefcient of the absorber compared with other metal magnetic materials for microwave-absorbing application. It is interesting that the values of imaginary part of complex permittivity increase slightly with increasing frequency and the curves of the real part of permittivity exhibit the abrupt decrease, while the imaginary part of permittivity show the sharp peak at the corresponding frequency. This suggests a resonance behavior, which is expected when the composite is highly conductive and skin effect become signicant. In our studies, the resonant frequency of the samples is related to the high conductivity of nickel and cobalt. Additionally, the decreasing amplitude of e0 and the increasing amplitude of e00 are enhanced with the increasing metallic content of Ni and Co in the NiCoP lms, and they all shift to lower frequency. In general, the permittivity originates from orientation polarization, atomic polarization and electronic polarization. Normally, the resonance that originated from vacancy or pores usually dominates in the low-frequency regions, provided that there exist space charges in the materials. High-frequency resonance is attributed to atomic and electronic polarization [30]. So we observed a resonance peak in the curves of both the real and

Fig. 4. Frequency dependence of the real (a) and imaginary (b) part of the complex permittivity of pre-treated silicon carbide and samples 14.

imaginary parts of complex permittivity can be interpreted as different chemical compositions of NiCoP deposits that is the intrinsic characteristics of our prepared materials and atomic polarization. The real and imaginary parts of permeability of samples 14, and SiC particlesolen composites are shown in Fig. 5. One feature of the data is that the values of real part m0 of complex permeability for all samples all decrease with increasing frequency as shown in Fig. 5a, this is due to both eddy current loss and ferromagnetic resonance [31]. The values of imaginary part m00 of complex permeability for all samples also show a decrease with increasing frequency as shown in Fig. 5b and exhibit two distinct resonance peaks around 1 and 8 GHz, respectively. Usually, for ferrite magnetic materials, the microwave magnetic loss of magnetic materials originates mainly from hysteresis loss, domain wall resonance, natural ferromagnetic resonance, and the eddy current effect. The hysteresis loss was caused due to irreversible magnetization and was negligible in a weak applied eld. It is possible to separate the permeability spectra into the spin rotational component and the domain wall motion contribution, using numerical tting [32]. Resonance due to domain wall movement normally occurs at low-frequency region (<2 GHz);

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properties is complicated in this paper, and the exact mechanism yet is not ascertained, so more experiments need to be done in the future. For composites with n magnetic particles embedded in a non-magnetic matrix, we can obtain the relationship between theoretical effective permeability of the composites and the total volume fraction of magnetic particles in the matrix. Basically, the effective permeability meff increases for composites with high-volume fraction p. A linear relationship is also observed between the effective permeability and volume fraction when the volume fraction p in the composites is small. The SiC particles are non-magnetic, however, the electroless NiCoP-coated SiC powders are magnetic, therefore the weight gain of electroless NiCoP-coated SiC powders in the matrix increases will increase the effective permeability meff of composites. Similarly, the SiC particles are semiconductor, and the thin lm of NiCoP is conductor, so the volume fraction p of electroless NiCoP-coated SiC powders in the matrix increases will also increase the permittivity of composites. The normalized input impedance Zin of a single metalbacked microwave-absorbing layer is given by [36]: r p 2p fd mr er mr (5) Z in tanh c er where mr and er are the relative complex permeability and permittivity, respectively, of the composite medium, c is the velocity of electromagnetic waves in free space, f is the frequency of microwaves, and d is the thickness of the absorber. The reection loss is related to Zin by [36]:    Z in 1   (6) RL 20 log Z 1 in Thus, the surface reectance of an absorber is a function of six characteristic parameters, viz, m0r , m00 , e0r , e00 , f, and d. Fig. 6 r r shows the calculated reection loss as a function of frequency for sample 3 at different thicknesses. The calculations use the

Fig. 5. Frequency dependence of the real (a) and imaginary (b) part of the complex permeability of pre-treated silicon carbide and samples 14.

however, resonance due to spin rotational component occurs as high-frequency region. So the rst resonance peal (around 1 GHz) may be due to domain wall resonance. It has been reported that the natural resonance frequency for Co (hcp) particles was 6.5 GHz [3335]; that is to say, the magnetic loss that peaked around 8 GHz could not be explained by natural ferromagnetic resonance. Thus, it could be concluded that the magnetic loss around 8 GHz was mainly caused by the eddy current effect. It is reasonable that both the dielectric loss and the magnetic loss can be inuenced by the coreshell microstructure of microwave absorbent. In general, the dielectric loss is attributed to the lags of polarization between the core/shell interfaces as the frequency is varied. In addition, the coreshell microstructure of microwave absorbent has something to do with eddy current loss that is one of the contributors to magnetic loss. In our study, the SiC particles may act as a magnetic inactive layer. The magnetic inactive layer causes the demagnetizing eld and the cut-off of the magnetic connection between the magnetic components. We believed that the core of SiC particles increased electromagnetic energy dissipation. However the contribution of coreshell microstructure of electroless NiCoP-coated SiC powders on the microwave

Fig. 6. Frequency dependence of the reection loss of sample 3 at various sample thicknesses.

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process for the application to lightweight microwave absorbers. Characterization techniques show that NiCoP deposits are spicular grains and comprised of a mixture of crystalline Ni3P and a-Co, and exhibit low-specic saturation magnetization and low coercivity. Due to the conductive and ferromagnetic behavior of the NiCo thin lms, high dielectric constant and magnetic loss can be obtained in the microwave frequencies. It is concluded that the higher the Co content in the alloy lms, the higher absorption rates for electromagnetic radiation. Reection loss less than 32 dB were found at 6.30 GHz with a thickness of 2.5 mm. The proposed absorber is well advanced in both mass and thickness in comparison with conventional ferrite absorber. Acknowledgement This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 20577017). actual values er and mr as shown in Figs. 4 and 5. The reection loss is found to depend sensitively on the thickness of the absorber and the maximum attenuation of the incident wave is observed with a thickness of 2.5 mm for sample 3, and the values of reection loss of the two peaks are 32.6 and 27.3, respectively. As shown in Fig. 6, when it is related to same sample the values of reection loss become minus and they all shift to lower frequency with increasing sample thickness. Fig. 7 shows the calculated reection loss for samples 14 at thickness of 2.5 mm. It is found that when it is related to same sample thickness the values of reection loss become minus and they all shift to lower frequency with decreasing weight of Co in the NiCoP lms. It is suggested that the reection loss is sensitive to a matching thickness and the composition of samples. The difference in microwave absorption properties of the plated powders is resulted from the different composition contents of the plated NiCoP layers. The Bohr magnetons (MB) of Co atom and Ni atom are 1.7 and 0.6, respectively. So, the magnetism of cobalt is better than the nickel. P atom is nonmagnetic. Although cobalt content in sample 1 is the largest, the phosphorus content in it exceeds 8 wt.%, which means poor magnetism of sample 1. For comparison, the Co content of sample 3 is larger and the P content of it is lower, so sample 3 possesses the better magnetism than the other samples. For magnetic microwave absorbers, magnetic loss is the main microwave loss tunnel. The powder with better magnetism results in larger microwave loss. The frequency of the strongest loss peak of the powders is different, which may be resulted from the different magnetism of the powders. In a word, the prepared samples exhibit good absorption performance in the 218 GHz frequencies and appear to be a potential microwaveabsorbing material. 4. Conclusions In summary, the NiCoP alloys were successfully deposited on SiC particles by two-step electroless plating References
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Fig. 7. Frequency dependence of the reection loss of samples 14 at thickness of 2.5 mm.

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