Electroless Plating with Copper Complex Ink as a Seed

Abstract

Electroless or electrolytic deposition processes require the use of a very costly catalyst, usually palladium, as a seed material. Here we present the use of a copper complex as a very efficient replacement for the conventional catalysts, which can be directly printed by various technologies such as screen, gravure, and inkjet, on both 2D and 3D substrates. The copper complex can be reduced to pure copper upon short exposure to low-temperature plasma, by heating under inert atmosphere or via photonic sintering. By combining the complex with electroless plating (EP), a resistivity as low as 2.38μΩ.cm which corresponds to 72% conductivity of bulk copper can be achieved