Selective electroless metal deposition using microcontact printing of phosphine-phosphonic acid inks.
We report a low-cost approach to selectively deposit films of nickel and copper on glass substrates. Our approach uses microcontact printing of organic inks containing phosphonic acid groups to bind the ink to a glass substrate and phosphine groups to bind a colloidal catalyst that initiates electroless metallization. We demonstrate this procedure by fabricating patterned nickel and copper films with areas as large as 15 cm2 and minimum feature sizes of approximately 2 microm. We present studies on the use of two ink types, an oligomer and a bifunctional molecule, and demonstrate that pattern quality and adhesion of the metallized films depends on the molecular weight of the ink and the ratio of phosphine and phosphonic acid groups.
IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, PO Box 218, Yorktown Heights, New York 10598, USA. tbcarmic@us.ibm.com
Tricia Breen
TB
Carmichael
Sarah J
SJ
Vella
Ali
A
Afzali