Electrochemical Copper Metallization of Glass Substrates Mediated by Solution-Phase Deposition of Adhesion-Promoting Layers

Metal-to-glass interfaces commonly encountered in electronics and surface finishing applications are prone to failure due to intrinsically weak interfacial adhesion. In the present work, an 'all-wet' process (utilizing solution-phase process steps) is developed for depositing nucleation- and adhesion-promoting layers that enhance the interfacial adhesion between glass substrates and electrochemically-deposited copper (Cu) films. Adhesion between thick (>10 mu m) Cu films and the underlying glass substrates is facilitated by an interfacial Pd-TiO2 layer deposited using solution-phase processes. Additionally, the proposed interfacial engineering utilizes self-assembled monolayers to functionalize the glass substrate, thereby improving surface wettability during Pd-TiO2 deposition. Resulting Pd-TiO2 deposits catalyze direct electroless plating of thin Cu seed layers, which enable subsequent electrodeposition of thick (>10 mu m) Cu coatings. The present work provides a viable route for high-throughput, cost-effective metallization of glass and ceramic surfaces for electronics and surface finishing applications. (C) The Author(s) 2015. Published by ECS. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (CC BY, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse of the work in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. All rights reserved.