Preliminary investigation into the use of silver seed layers in copper electroplating of waveguide parts

We present a preliminary investigation into the copper plating of printed SLA plastics using a silver seed layer. The silver seed layer is deposited using the Tollens reaction, a chemical process used to test for aldehydes. The device under test is a split-block WR42 waveguide cut along the E-plane, manufactured with SLA printing. Initial results showed that the waveguide achieved a loss of better than 5.6 dB/m over the operating band. Repeatability was an issue with multiple waveguides exhibiting corrosion and high insertion loss.