A new primer for electroless plating for use in the pretreatment process for electroless plating, which is environmentally friendly, can be easily treated in fewer process steps, and can provide sufficient adhesion to the substrate. A photocurable primer for forming a metal plating film on a base material through an electroless plating process, having (a) a hyperbranched polymer having an ammonium group at a molecular terminal and a weight average molecular weight of 1,000 to 5,000,000, (b) metal fine particles, (c) a polymerizable compound having a (meth)acryloyl group, and (d) a photopolymerization initiator.

It is provided a method for manufacturing a metal coated substrate by forming a metal coating on a surface of a substrate, comprising: immersing the substrate in a palladium/tin colloidal solution; immersing the substrate in an acid solution; carrying out electroless metal plating in order to obtain a continuous film-coated substrate, and subjecting the metal coating to a cryogenic treatment step in order to make it permeable to electromagnetic waves, the cryogenic treatment step being carried out by cooling the substrate with liquid nitrogen. It is also provided a metal coated substrate obtainable by the mentioned method and an article of manufacture made of the metal coated substrate.

A process for the large scale manufacturing of vertically standing hybrid nanometer-scale structures of different geometries, including fractal architecture made of flexible materials, on a flexible substrate including textiles is disclosed. The nanometer-scale structures increase the surface area of the substrate. The nanometer-scale structures may be coated with materials that are sensitive to various physical parameters or chemicals such as but not limited to temperature, humidity, pressure, atmospheric pressure, electromagnetic signals originating from biological or non-biological sources, volatile gases, and pH. The increased surface area achieved through the disclosed process is intended to improve the sensitivity of the sensors formed by coating of the nanometer-scale structure and substrate with a material which can be used to sense physical parameters and chemicals as listed previously. An embodiment with nanometer-scale structures on a textile substrate coated with a conductive, malleable and bio-compatible sensing material for use as a biopotential measurement electrode is provided.

A laminate including a metallic base material, a nickel-containing plating film layer formed on the metallic base material, and a gold plating film layer formed on the nickel-containing plating film layer, in which pinholes in the gold plating film layer are sealed with a fluorinated passive film having a thickness of 8 nm or greater. Also disclosed is a constituent member of a semiconductor production device including the laminate and a method for producing the laminate.

The present invention relates to a thermoplastic resin composition for a laser direct structuring process and a molded article produced therefrom. In one embodiment, the thermoplastic resin composition comprises: a polyamide resin; a polyester resin; a rubber-modified aromatic vinyl-based graft copolymer; an inorganic filler; and an additive for laser direct structuring.

A method of producing electrically conductive metallic structures in or on textiles, which has the following steps: (a) introducing at least one non-conducting precursor compound into a fibre or yarn material during or after the production thereof, wherein the at least one precursor compound is an inorganic metal phosphate compounds, a metal oxide or a spinel of the general formula AB.sub.2O.sub.4, (b) producing a textile from the fibre or yarn material, (c) irradiating the textile with electromagnetic radiation, preferably with laser light in the regions of the electrically conductive structures to be produced, with the release of metallisation seeds, and (d) electrical or non-electrical treatment of the textile with deposit of metals at the metallisation seeds with the production of conductive structures in the textile.

The disclosure provides a circuit substrate and a method for manufacturing the same. The circuit substrate includes a wiring and a substrate having a base region and a circuit region. The base region having a first pattern is constituted by a first thermoplastic material. The circuit region having a second pattern is constituted by a second thermoplastic material. The first pattern has a portion opposite to the second pattern. The wiring is formed on the circuit region along the second pattern. The first thermoplastic material is different from the second thermoplastic material, and the second thermoplastic material includes a catalyst particle.

An autocatalytic gold bath capable of depositing gold from solution onto a substrate, wherein the substrate has one or more metal layers thereon. The autocatalytic gold bath includes (a) a chelator; (b) a gold salt; and (c) a reducing agent, wherein the reducing agent comprises an organic molecule having more than one carbon atom on the organic molecule. A process of plating gold onto the surface of the one or more metal layers on the substrate is also included. The gold plating bath can be used to deposit a final finish to the surface of the one or more metal layers which can be formed in an ENIG, ENEPIG, EPAG, direct gold over copper or gold over silver process.

Disclosed herein are thermoplastic composition comprising (a) about 15 wt % to about 95 wt % polymer component comprising: (i) either about 20 wt % to about 85 wt % poly(p-phenylene oxide) and about 10 wt % to about 65 wt % flow promoter or about 70 wt % to 100 wt % polypropylene, said polypropylene being homopolymer and/or copolymer; and (ii) greater than about 0 wt % to about 30 wt % impact modifier; (b) about 2 wt % to about 50 wt % of a laser activatable additive having a core-shell structure, wherein the core comprises an inorganic filler and the shell comprises a laser activatable component; and (c) about 3 wt % to about 70 wt % inorganic fillers.

A microstructure comprises a plurality of interconnected units wherein the units are formed of hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) tubes. The graphene tubes may be formed by photo-initiating the polymerization of a monomer in a pattern of interconnected units to form a polymer microlattice, removing unpolymerized monomer, coating the polymer microlattice with a metal, removing the polymer microlattice to leave a metal microlattice, depositing an h-BN precursor on the metal microlattice, converting the h-BN precursor to h-BN, and removing the metal microlattice.