Metal deposition on flexible membrane through the combination of localized electrochemical deposition and electroless plating

In this paper, we combined localized electrochemical deposition and electroless plating process for fabricating the metal pattern with the large area on flexible membrane. The pattern of the anode plate can rapidly transfer to the cathode membrane by localized electrochemical deposition. The thickness of the pattern can be increased by electroless plating process. The width of the mask pattern was close to the width of the final pattern. The anode plate can be used over fifty times for this process until the pattern was electrolyzed completely. This method provides a possible low cost approach to fabricate high metal structures on the flexible substrate with large area. It may have the potential to be applied in the fabrication of e-paper, flexible printed circuit and eventually adapted to roll-to-roll process.