Metal patterning on silicon surface by site-selective electroless deposition through colloidal crystal templating

Site-selective Cu deposition on a Si substrate was achieved by a combination of colloidal crystal templating, hydrophobic treatment, and electroless plating. Uniformly sized nano/microstructures were produced on the substrate using a monolayer coating of colloidal spheres instead of a conventional resist. The Cu patterns obtained were of two different types: networklike honeycomb and isolated-island patterns with a minimum period of 200 nm. Each ordered pattern with the desired intervals was composed of clusters of Cu nanoparticles with a size range of 50-100 nm. By the present method, it is possible to control the periodicity of metal arrays by changing the diameter of the colloidal spheres used as an initial mask and to adjust the shape of the metal patterns by changing the mask structure for electroless plating.