Calvin daRosa

Applied Materials and Surface Science Laboratory

Catalyst Deposition for Microreactors Using Galvanic Displacement

Selective metal deposition with small features has gained interest for a variety of applications. One such application is in microreactors, where metals are used as catalysts. Galvanic displacement provides a new method for deposition of metal films in microreactors that is selective to silicon and conformal. Since the deposition occurs upon simple immersion of silicon in a plating solution, it is possible to deposit inside silicon microparts, in regions that would not be accessible via line-of-sight methods.