An electroless plating method for conducting microbeads using gold nanoparticles

Gold nanoparticles interlinked with alkanethiols were deposited on 6 mu m acrylic resin microbeads as a 30 nm thickness layer, and it was found that the electroconductance of the deposited nanoparticle film can be controlled by the concentration of binder thiol and that replating of the bead dramatically reduced the single-bead resistance. This new synthetic strategy for the metallization of plastic micro-objects with a gold nanoparticle provides a way to form a homogeneous conducting layer. This technique also has the advantage of producing metallized plastic materials with environment-friendly protocols as an alternative pathway to the conventional electroless plating techniques. (c) 2007 The Electrochemical Society.