Preparation of Cu-coated Diamond Particles and Its Influence on the Performances of Diamond/Cu Composites

Cu-coated diamond particles in variable mass ratio of diamond and Cu are prepared by electroless plating process, then the coated particles are sintered by Spark Plasma Sintering (SPS) respectively. Diamond/Cu composites with high content of diamond(70vol%) are obtained eventually. The results indicate that not only coating diamond by copper electroless plating process could be used to obtain well-dispersed Diamond/Cu composites, but also effectively to improve the relative density of the sintered body, the relative density of the sintered body at 70vol% content of diamond is about 97.5%, as well as to obtain the composite with higher thermal conductivity. Thermal conductivity of the 70vol% Diamond-Cu composite reaches as high as 404 W/(m.K).