of palladium chloride in 0 02 m hcl was prepared by adding 1 8 g pdcl 2 to 300 ml of stirred acid and heating to 60 70 u00b0 c for about 30 minutes then cooling to room temperature and filtering the resultant dark yellow brown solution using a nalgene media plus filter unit the ph of the solution was about 1 65 pdcl 2 was a 99 9 percent palladium ii chloride obtainable from johnson mathey catalogue no 11034 which was used without further purification the hydrochloric acid was 0 1 m obtainable from aldrich catalogue no 31 896 5 which was diluted with di water to the desired concentration the solution is not air sensitive but it was also kept in the nitrogen box along with the snf 2 solution to avoid oxidation of the snf 2 layer in air during the transfer from the rinsing bath to the pdcl 2 hcl bath magnetic stirrers under the nitrogen box were used to gently stir both the snf 2 and pdcl 2 solutions in order to optimize the conditions for sensitizing the fiber surface the effect of the concentration of both the pdcl 2 and the hcl were investigated it was found that the higher the pdcl 2 concentration the better but that the hcl concentration should be kept as low as possible while still maintaining the solubility of the pdcl 2 solutions of pdcl 2 may be.