Application of microcontact printing to electroless plating for the fabrication of microscale silver patterns on glass

Microcontact printing (mu CP) and electroless plating are combined to produce microscale patterns of silver on glass substrates. Silver patterns with feature sizes of 0.67 1 0,mu m stripes are fabricated using two methods. (1) The printing seeding layer (PSL) method is to apply mu CP to directly print the catalyst Sri pattern for further electroless plating. (2) The printing masking layer (PML) method is to use mu CP to print the octadecyltrichlorosilane (OTS) self-assembled monolayer as a masking layer on glass substrates, which then become Sn-activated in the unstampred regions by immersing the substrates in stannous chloride solution. After the electroless silver plating, the PML method has a better selectivity of silver deposition than the PSL method. In addition, variation of the deposited silver thickness as a function of the plating time and temperature is discussed.