The study of microstructure and electrical conductivity of nano-Cu film/transparent wood constructed based on magnetron sputtering

Combining metal with transparent wood to give it good electrical conductivity is of great practical significance for the functional improvement of wood and the expansion of application areas. In this paper, transparent wood was prepared by delignification treatment and impregnation of epoxy resin with balsa wood as the substrate, and nano-Cu film/transparent wood composites were prepared by magnetron sputtering. The microstructure, surface morphology, hydrophobicity and electrical conductivity of the composites were characterized and tested. The results show that: when the sputtering time reaches 30 min, the surface of transparent wood is almost completely covered by the nano-Cu film, and a “sheet-like” dense nano-Cu film is formed on the surface of the sample, which realizes the metallization of the surface of the transparent wood; at 2θ equal to the vicinity of 43.3°, 50.4° and 74.1°, the metallic copper Cu (111), Cu(200) and Cu(220) diffraction peaks appeared; the Cu element content on the surface of transparent wood reached 91.85%; the parallel to grain resistance is 1.24 Ω/sq and the across grain resistance is 1.62 Ω/sq, which can be seen that the composite of metallic material and transparent wood using magnetron sputtering, a purely physical method, successfully prepares the nano-Cu film/transparent wood with the surface square with the resistance value lower than 2 Ω/sq, which also has opened up more possibilities for applications in modern electronics, architectural and decorative materials, and other related fields.