Hi Novak
I'm afraid I cannot offer advice on electroless plating, but if you want the
lowest possible surface roughness, you should consider ion beam sputtering.
This gives a much smoother surface than conventional magnetron sputtering.
Published figures show that films deposited on super-polished optical
substrates have a surface roughness of 0.5 Angstroms rms.  This is orders of
magnitude better than e-beam evaporation or even e-beam with ion assisted
deposition.  It is also possible to maintain low substrate temperatures.
This technique has been used to fabricate ring-laser gyroscopes and gravity
wave mirrors.
Please contact me if you think this would be useful to you.

Martin

Martin Walker B.Sc.(Tech.) M.Sc.
Tactical Marketing Engineer
Oxford Instruments Plasma Technology
North End, Yatton, Bristol, BS49 4AP UK
T.+44 (0)1934 837031  F.+44 (0)1934 837001
E. 
W. 


On Mon, 22 Jul 2002 13:32:00 +0100 N. Farrington wrote
>Hi all,

>I was wondering if anyone could give me any help from their
>experience or direction to literature on the following problem. I don't
>know if this will seem trival to some but I have been able to find
>little technical information on the subject.

>I need to deposit a layer (200-300nm thick but this is not critical) of
>metal (electrical properties not important) on a polymer substrate.
>This needs to be done at a temperature of less than 50 deg celcius
>with the lowest possible surface rougness (sputtering is
>unfortunatley not an option!). From what I can gather, electroless
>plating of copper (nickel requires temperatures of 80-90 deg C?)
>using a tin chloride pre-catalyst, a palladium catalyst and copper
>salt + formaldehyde plating solution could be an option.

>Any advice, recipies or recommended reading material on this
>matter would be greatly appreciated.

>Thanks in advance and best regards,

>Novak

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