gbugh
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Interior surface coating of a copper resonant microwave cavity?
Do most people just leave the interior surface with a nominal coating of copper tarnish and it doesn't affect the Q much or does it?
I was just wondering because with a gold plating I think it usually has a nickel plating under it which has greater resistance.
When I search the topic I see: "...are silver-plated and covered with a gold flash layer. The current then mostly flows in the high-conductivity silver layer, while the gold flash layer protects the silver layer from oxidizing."
But do most people do this or is plain copper good enough for many applications?
Can silver be laid down directly on copper or does it require a nickel base plating? I thought silver will eventually diffuse into the copper and make an alloy with higher resistance than either copper or silver alone. Is that wrong?
Thanks, George
Do most people just leave the interior surface with a nominal coating of copper tarnish and it doesn't affect the Q much or does it?
I was just wondering because with a gold plating I think it usually has a nickel plating under it which has greater resistance.
When I search the topic I see: "...are silver-plated and covered with a gold flash layer. The current then mostly flows in the high-conductivity silver layer, while the gold flash layer protects the silver layer from oxidizing."
But do most people do this or is plain copper good enough for many applications?
Can silver be laid down directly on copper or does it require a nickel base plating? I thought silver will eventually diffuse into the copper and make an alloy with higher resistance than either copper or silver alone. Is that wrong?
Thanks, George
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