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Reaction of PMMA with a Gold Cyanide salt in a citric acid electrolyte ?

Hi there,

I am attempting to plate single crystal gold nanowires into PMMA template features which have been patterned by electron beam lithography. This process works phenomenal with a gold sulfite based plating solution, except I can not yield single crystal nanowires due to the instability of the gold sulfite complex. I've switched to a gold cyanide based plating solution in a citric acid electrolyte with a pH around 6. This bath gives great facetted single crystal growth, but when trying to repeat the process of plating into PMMA structures, the PMMA film is peeling off the substrate and washing into the bath. I believe that it is a reaction of the PMMA with the cyanide complex.

Does anyone have experience with this and have a potential solution or something to try?

Thanks!

Michael

Michael Burek
Electroplating researcher - Pasadena, California, USA
March 10, 2009