Efficient copper plating on glass substrates through amine-functionalized nanocomposite-immobilized silver nanoparticles

Abstract

Amine-functionalized silver nanocatalyst was synthesized using polyethyleneimine (PEI) and glutaraldehyde (GA) and applied to electroless copper on the glass substrate. The formation mechanism of the polyethyleneimine-glutaraldehyde (PEI-GA) was firstly analyzed, then the polyethyleneimine-glutaraldehyde-silver (PEI-GA-Ag) was measured, which showed that the silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) were spherical with an average size of about 5 nm and a narrow particle distribution, and PEI-GA-Ag was analyzed by UV-Vis to demonstrate the synthesized AgNPs were uniformly dispersed and stable without agglomeration for a period of 10 months. The application of PEI-GA-Ag nanocomposite in the glass metallization process resulted in the formation of a complete, uniform copper layer on grit-blasted glass, which passed adhesion tests successfully without flaking. After 10 mins of electroless copper plating, the thickness of the copper layer is approximately 1 µm, displaying a sheet resistance of 0.018 Ω/square, and the resistivity is 1.8×10−6 Ωcm, which is close to that of a bulk copper. This proposes that PEI-GA-Ag has excellent stability and catalytic efficiency and can be effectively used in electroless plating processes to replace conventional expensive palladium colloid catalysts.