Additive photolithography based process for metal patterning using chemical reduction on surface modified polyimide

This article presents progress towards the direct metallisation of polyimide via silver ion impregnation and nanocluster formation using a novel solvent free photoresist prior to electroless silver plating. Such a process is envisaged to play a major part in the fabrication of a wide range of electronic devices, such as RFID, flexible electronics, biomedical applications, OLED, e-paper and flip-chip bonding applications by providing a quicker, greener and more cost effective methods of polymer electronics production. A new method involving the chemical reduction of silver ions is presented here providing a comparison to previous UV photoreduction experiments, and a further test for electrolessly plated microstructures.